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It’s probably too early to gauge the effect of City of Sydney’s betrayal of apartment residents when it comes to holiday letting – but it’s somewhere between a kick in the guts and smack in the mouth.
The city council’s submission to the current government inquiry into short-stay lets recommends that changes of use to Airbnb-style holiday rentals should be “exempt developments” provided there’s a limit on the number of nights a year.
The CoS submission didn’t put a number on that but, according to my spies, the pro-short-stay lobby did. How about at least 100 nights a year, they say. Or, in layman’s terms, every weekend.
If you read this in print or online you can access
the Forum discussions on short-stay lets here.Either way, the council with the highest concentration of apartments says short-stay letting is fine by it. The genie is out of the bottle.
The impact of short-stay lets in apartment buildings is different from houses. You never know who’s moving in right next door, and most of the time, neither do the “hosts”.
You don’t know that guy in the pool with your kids, and they don’t know (or care) about the bins, parking, noise and all the other things we take for granted.
Not only are short-stay lets causing disruption in their buildings on a scale from ‘not very much’ to ‘call the police’, these add up to potentially 1300 homes in City of Sydney no longer available on the residential market. And that’s just on Airbnb – there are other agencies involved in what City of Sydney planners once described as “Rezoning By Stealth”.
Oh how they have changed their tune. Given that 70 percent of its residents live in flats, City of Sydney had a major responsibility to get this right. They are doing great work with free public forums educating residents about strata living, but then their Strategic Planning and Urban Design section goes and does this.
On the one hand council lawyers cling grimly to the outdated notion that your home is your castle even when your floor is someone else’s ceiling.
On the other are hipster policy wonks selling the big fat lie that it’s all about ‘sharing’. What a crock! For 60 percent of short-stay lets, it’s a business.
As for this weekend’s election, one candidate on Clover Moore’s ticket “gets” strata in a way most politicians don’t.
“As chair of two strata buildings, I have seen first-hand the terrible impact short term renters have on … residential apartment buildings,” said Catherine Lezer in her submission to the inquiry.
There’s more on this on the Forum.
The opinions offered in these Forum posts and replies are not intended to be taken as legal advice. Readers with serious issues should consult experienced strata lawyers.
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This is just another reason for establishing a new political party to protect the rights of strata residents.
Having to sell and move out because 75 of owners (often many of these will be investors) is an absolute disgrace.
The Strata Residents Protection Party should be established and run candidates for the NSW Upper House as well as a candidate in the electorate of the responsible Minister.
Surprising decision knowing that short term letting is directly linked to overcrowding issues in the Sydney CITY.
Knowing that the Sydney City council is employing 10 people to work against overcrowding issues since the last 2 years,(around $1.5M wages for a return of 170K fines) how come the council agrees with AirBnB!This is a total contradiction!
Here’s the PETITION. Get EVERYONE of your friends and neighbours – every resident in your building – to sign it!
The CEO of the City of Sydney has taken an official stance: Council will not respond to correspondence on this issue.
Lord Mayor Clover Moore writes: “It is important to note the City advocates for a state-wide approach, reflecting the views of community members, platform owners, tourist and visitor accommodation operators and investors.”
This is a 380 degree back flip and is a recommendation affecting every NSW Resident, not just those in the City of Sydney.
Can we identify just one – one – “community member” who has been consulted by Ms Moore and the City? Anyone from Sydney? Anyone across the State?
The NSW Police in Byron are operating under conditions they describe as a ‘war zone’, Byron’s mayor is putting pop-up housing to house residents priced out of housing, the homeless folks down in Nowra are told to move up into the caves, the highest ever levels tenant evictions and homelessness, the low-paid workers of Sydney sleeping rough in their cars? We’ve got record levels of homeless right across the State.
Airbnb reportedly spent USD8 million in San Francisco lobbying city officials. Can we know if any members of Council or State Parliament have received donations from the short-term platform owners?
You can ask questions but, officially, Council will not answer you.
Here’s another great quote (and see the video): “Zoning Laws are only as good as the enforcement behind them. If you don’t enforce, what’s the good of having them on the books? It comes down to trust in Public Officials to enforce the laws…because if they won’t enforce, they might as well not be there.”
Very, very, very angry Clover Moore/Monica Barone/City of Sydney. Will we be adding the NSW Parliament to this?
Owners corporations throughout NSW, and beyond, are very lucky to have folk like you doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Flat Chat forces policy makers to listen to our concerns.The concerns of those of us trying to eak out our existence in close quarters in a strata community. It’s obvious that most of the decision makers don’t live in an apartment, because the obvious intrusion short-let stays have on the peaceful enjoyment of a lot would not be considered OK if they did.Is there a lobby group representing owners corporations? Or are the only voices from SCA and Strata Manager like associations? Obviously their concerns are quite different to ours. If there isn’t a lobby group for owners corporations, I wonder if it was time one was formed. I’d be interested to get involved.I had a lot of respect for you Jimmy until you wrote the drivel about CoS representative. How could you support [Clover Moore]! She is betrayer of all City of Sydney owners – who do you think created the paper. She is so two faced she may need three faces soon.
(This message was edited to remove inappropriate language but I decided to run it to allow a breadth of opinions- JimmyT)
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