Noosa’s tough Airbnb crackdown upheld in legal challenge to laws

One of the first legal challenges to Noosa Shire Council’s tough Airbnb crackdown has failed, further frustrating homeowners who were hoping to make use of the popular platform.

A Peregian Beach house owned by Peter and Deborah Jephcott.

One of the first legal challenges to Noosa Shire Council’s Airbnb crackdown has upheld the validity of the strict new local laws which have frustrated homeowners hoping to make use of the popular platform.

In a decision handed down on Thursday, Planning and Environment Court Judge Glen Cash threw out an appeal against a short-term stay ban by the owners of a Peregian Beach vacation home.

The case is believed to be only the second case to be decided in court as a test of the controversial laws which apply to the Noosa area which is a popular playground for cashed-up holiday-makers.

Mr Cash ruled that owners Peter and Deborah Jephcott had failed to prove their three-bed one-bathroom Gannet St holiday home “had the benefit of an existing use right for” short-stay letting before February 1, 2022.

This was the date when Noosa Shire Council began its crackdown on short stay letting, forcing owners who were already renting their homes to holiday-makers to reapply for approval for short-stay letting.

The council states on its website that the crackdown was aimed at curbing “the rise of online booking platforms … and regulating the rise and creep of ‘commercial’ tourist accommodation into residential neighbourhoods”.

Inside the Peregian Beach house owned by Peter and Deborah Jephcott.

“The appellants frankly conceded that they had not used the premises for short stay

accommodation on a commercial basis,” he said, referring to their use before February 2022.

“The short-term usage being limited to making the premises available for use by family and friends,” Mr Cash said in his decision.

Mr and Mrs Jephcott bought the home for $460,000 in 2014 and for three years it was used as a holiday house for themselves, family and friends.

“There was no payment by family and friends, other than that “they shout our family a restaurant meal or alcohol or a gift for the house for letting them use it and to clean the house, remove garbage, wash sheets, replace things used and to be respectful to our neighbours and keep pets under control,” the decision states.

In 2017 the home was rented through an agent to long-term tenants until 2019 when it reverted to a private holiday home for the Jephcott family and their friends.

“Whatever theoretical or intended use may have been available to the appellants immediately before the Noosa Plan 2020 commenced, they were not using the premises for short stay letting on a commercial basis. Because this use did not exist at the time the Noosa Plan 2020 commenced there was nothing for section 260 of the Planning Act to preserve,” Mr Cash opined.

Mr Cash said that if the Jephcott family now wanted to rent their home to tourists or travellers for short stays they would need to pass the council’s “impact assessment”.

The Noosa Plan 2020 limits homeowners to letting out their principal place of residence to holiday-makers for a maximum of 60 nights per year and no more than four times a year.

“It is not the appellants’ principal place of residence, and the proposed use seems likely to be for more than four occurrences, and more than 60 nights, per calendar year,” Mr Cash ruled.

“It follows that the Noosa Plan 2020 does not permit the appellants’ proposed ‘short term accommodation’,” he concluded.

Noosa Shire Council development and regulation director Richard MacGillivray welcomed the judgement, saying that the decision reinforces the Council’s approach to short-stay letting.

“We were the first Queensland council to introduce a short stay letting local law to address the impacts on permanent residents and residential amenity,” he said.

Mr Macgillivray said there are currently more than 2500 approved short-stay letting properties in the Noosa shire, under new laws introduced in February 2022.

“We have a robust framework in place and this judgement in the Planning and Environment Court is positive news for our community and supports our ongoing compliance,” he said.

In May last year, Judge Cash also dismissed a similar appeal by a company owned by Brisbane accountancy firm executive Bernard Curran and his wife, from Brisbane’s Red Hill.

They applied to the court to get council approval to rent out their $2.7m Sunshine Beach holiday duplex named “Luxury Ocean Villa” to short-stay tenants.

Originally published as Noosa’s tough Airbnb crackdown upheld in legal challenge to laws