A review of Noosa Council's pioneering Short-Stay Local Law shows it has been effective at reducing impacts of short-term accommodation on residential neighbourhoods.
Noosa Mayor Frank Wilkie said the short-stay letting registration process, compliance action and the 24-hour hotline had improved amenity for residents and visitors.
"Since the start of the year 97% of calls made to the 24-hour hotline were answered and responded to by the contact person within the required timeframe of 30 minutes," Cr Wilkie said.
"Three complaints out of the 136 calls made this calendar year were not responded to within 30 minutes, resulting in three $806 fines."
The number of complaints to the hotline fell from 592 in 2023 to 266 in 2024, Cr Wilkie said.
"Hotline responses by managers and owners plus compliance action has reduced the impacts some short-stay letting properties were having on neighbourhood amenity.
"The review found 87 per cent of short-stay letting properties have not been the subject of a complaint."
In 2022 Noosa became the first Queensland council to regulate short-stay letting of homes via a local law. It introduced an approval process, complaints hotline and guest code of conduct.
As well as confirming the local law is working well to protect amenity and reduce community concerns, the recent review, which consulted a broad range of stakeholders, recommended 31 operational improvements to further strengthen its regulatory effectiveness. 13 of those actions Council has already begun rolling out, Director of Development and Regulation Richard MacGillivray said.
"Since 2022 we've issued 386 Compliance Notices and 169 Infringement Notices. That's a significant number of actions taken for those not meeting their obligations, and we're looking to boost compliance efforts further to deter poor conduct and protect residential amenity," he said.
"Eighty-seven percent of short-stay properties have never been the subject of a complaint, 10 per cent have received one complaint, while three percent have received three or more.
"This data tells us most STA properties are doing to a good job to manage their impacts and we'll be primarily targeting our compliance efforts on those with poor track records, with regular audits of bookings to ensure the number of guests aligns with approvals and we're starting to boost rigour around onsite carparking.
"We'll ramp up our advocacy with the state to review existing use right provisions in residential zones and ensure that all short-stay booking data is shared with local governments."
Other improvements include:
- Develop criteria to expand fee categories to reflect resort-style complexes.
- Audits of property managers' complaint handling processes.
- Enforcing the mandatory display of guest code of conduct at all short-stay properties.
- Increased promotion of the code of conduct and hotline via social media.
- Training for property managers on local law requirements.
Mr MacGillivray said Council is looking to work closely with online booking platforms such as AirBnb to align efforts and action taken against those with history of poor conduct.
Input from a stakeholder group made up of residents' associations, community and business groups, and short-stay industry representatives informed the Short-Stay Local Law operational review.
Mayor Wilkie said more than 330 short-stay properties had been cancelled by property owners or not renewed by Council, a majority of which were dwelling houses, since the local law's introduction.
"As a community in the grips of a housing crisis the return of these properties to the long-term rental market is another positive outcome," he said.
