Re: Selling sharing: facts, figures and flim-flam

You are right to be concerned.  The Coure Report recommends exempting holiday lets from planning restrictions – which would invalidate your by-laws – and airbnb are lobbying hard to have those proposals accepted.

 

Just to be clear, because of Section 139 (2) of the strata Act, you can’t have by-laws restricting short-term lets but you can have by-laws supporting local zoning.  It’s a subtle but significant difference becasue if holiday lets are exempted, your by-law falls over. 

 

Manly is, of course, one of the major Airbnb hotspots and residential  rents have already gone up by two to three times as much as in the rest of Sydney in the period that Airbnb has been active.

 

Your strata committee should be writing to your local MP now to make sure your only protection against Manly apartment blocks being turned into de facto hotels is not removed.