Mosman Council calls for tougher penalties on short-term lets
MOSMAN Council has called for planning laws to catch up with short-term holiday letting, which has boomed in the suburb.
Mosman
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MOSMAN Council called for greater clarity, consistency and research on the contentious issue of short-term holiday letting in a submission to the NSW Government last month.
Among other suggestions, the council has called for more practical and enforceable regulations with tougher penalties for short-term holiday letting in residential units where the building’s body corporate has prohibited such letting.
Mosman had more than 380 Airbnb listings when the council was drafting its report: almost double the 200 listings from the time of the council’s previous submission on the matter in October 2015.
The council’s report noted that planning laws struggled to keep up with regulating short-term holiday letting.
The report also stated that units, not houses, were more likely to be affected, although the number of complaints was “relatively low”.
Councillor Libby Moline, an apartment resident, said she was “very anti-short-term holiday lettings”.
“Because the experience I have had living in this situation is, paintings stolen from the foyer, inappropriate behaviour, people with security keys; it’s my home and yet every man and his dog can have a security key to my home,” she said.
“We then have to manage the property for the person who owns it, because half the time they’re not even in the state or in the country.
“Re: rubbish, when they leave, they leave stuff behind, and we end up being the managers of their investments. It really does bug me!
“Your private homes may be slightly different, however, it does make me laugh that you’ve got to apply to the council to chop a tree down on your own property, yet you’re allowed to open your house up and make it into a money-making venture and a commercial venture.”
Deputy Mayor Roy Bendall, whose family lets out part of their property to holiday-makers, said he was aware of “tales of woe” from an apartment block about short-term letters.
“I think this matter is a serious matter that needs to be addressed in our community,” he said.
“Council is stuck between a rock and a hard place on this issue: between the rights of landowners and unitholders to lease out their apartments and maximise return, and the rights of existing residents to quiet enjoyment of their facilities.”
Submissions on the government’s Options Paper for short-term holiday letting closed October 31.