Whitsunday council to review its handling of short term accommodation in residential areas

Whitsundays’ elected officials are being left in the dark over short-term accommodation approvals in an already tight housing market.

Councillors expressed frustrations with their lack of knowledge of short term accommodation proposals for places like Airlie Beach, pictured, but wanted to find a way to resolve this without slowing down the development approvals process. Picture: Tourism Whitsundays

Whitsunday councillors are pushing for a planning scheme and policy reform over concerns short term accommodation approvals were strangling housing supply.

Division 2 Councillor Al Grundy requested a review of the current planning scheme requirements in relation to short term accommodation and Airbnbs, saying opening up more “leisure beds” in Airlie Beach had reduced the amount of “liveable beds” and this was making life difficult for people moving to the area for work.

Cr Grundy suggested the council look at how other parts of the state were handling the growth of the short term accommodation sector, calling it an area with “policy shortcomings”.

At the same June 30 council meeting in Bowen, fellow Division 2 Cr Jan Clifford moved to increase internal updates on new development applications decided under delegated authority, particularly material change of use applications, from monthly to weekly.

She said that would allow councillors to provide more informed responses to residents’ questions and complaints about short term accommodation approvals.

Cr Clifford she was “held up in the supermarket on a daily basis” about such applications and “looked like an idiot” when she could not provide a proper response because the council’s development assessment team had signed off on something without a council vote.

“People ask me ‘how did you let that happen?’ when I didn’t even know it was happening,” Cr Clifford said.

“Short term accommodation is a particular concern in my part of the world, and where it triggers things outside the council plan, we should know about it, ahead of time.

“At the moment, unless we sit there and trawl through everything in the middle of the night, we don’t know.

“I just would like to know and not look stupid out there when I don’t know.”

Development services director Neil McGaffin believed “there is very little concern throughout the community over short term accommodation”, but said the council had been looking at places such as Noosa to see how their council was handling complaints around short term rentals, such as noisy parties in residential areas.

Mr McGaffin’s suggestion to any resident concerned about a short term rental in their neighbourhood was to make a log book of the issues, noting times and dates and take it to the council.

“I would encourage people to make submissions, but we need a body of evidence,” he said.

“If they’re not materially affected the value of their submission is very limited.”