Council hit by renting rule change
JUST as Queenstown’s rental accommodation crisis hits overdrive, with much of the problem because of property owners changing their houses from being rentals to listed Airbnb homes, a kick in the guts hits the local council.
An Environment Court consent order, issued this week, makes the practice of converting houses for short term holiday accommodation even easier.
Those living in low, medium and highdensity zones can now put their homes on Airbnb, or a similar platform, for up to 90 days — provided they register their details with the Queenstown Lakes District Council.
Up until now, a resource consent was required for that activity.
Essentially, the court order was a kick in the guts for the council which, as planning and development general manager Tony Avery noted, ‘‘tried to significantly restrict the number of days houses could be used for residential visitor accommodation in a bid to improve the availability of housing for rent’’.
The consent order was signed off following mediation between the council and other parties, including Airbnb Australia Pty Ltd.
The problem, which Mr Avery alluded to, was the majority of submissions and submitter evidence put before a district plan hearing panel sought less restrictive rules.
In a press release issued yesterday, mayor Glyn Lewers expressed his disappointment but accepted, under the Resource Management Act, there was not deemed to be enough evidence to correlate housing issues with the supply of visitor accommodation.
Despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary, there was not enough hard and fast evidence proving houses going into Airbnb were affecting the supply of desperatelyneeded rental properties.
While it would be easier for homeowners to now use Airbnb for their properties for up to 90 days per annum, they would still be able to put them into longterm rentals for the balance of the year.
Alternatively, they could just as easily seek resource consent to use Airbnb on their home for even more than 90 days — up to six months, for example.