MEDIA RELEASE: The Fellas From Eurobodalla - Look What They've Done!

Listen up: TripAdvisor needs our homes; they want to beat Airbnb’s 4 million homes/listings. The We Live Here group in Victoria will be upset to see their residential building featured (see our photo).

A quick revision of Submissions made to the NSW Parliament’s Inquiry into the legislation of short-term rentals shows time and again that the “severe” impacts on neighbours wrought by short-term holiday/visitor rentals are always caused by or visited upon ‘the other’. Lisa from L’Abode – second busiest Airbnb operator in Sydney with 180 homes - is just one example.

This brings us also to the NSW south coast shire of Eurobodalla, one of 11 Local Government Areas to have already altered their Local Environmental Plan (LEP) to deem such rentals as complying or exempt development. Jeff Morgan from that Council wrote to Parliament that amenity/nuisance issues were not a significant issue, “as is the case on the NSW north coast”. Council’s expert then added: The short term rental of a private dwelling for the provision of tourist accommodation does not appear to be exempt from the requirement for a Bushfire Safety Authority under clause…of the Rural Fires Act 1997. This is a concern and it is requested that the inquiry consider this matter….(plus much more)”. Today, Eurobodalla Shire has 3,666 homes advertised through Airbnb, Expedia/Stayz. Only 84 homes are available for rent to residents via Domain. They don’t share Byron’s issues?

We would argue that ‘Class 1’ dwellings, converted without major modifications to ‘Class 1b’ and ‘Class 3’ commercial Use are not exempt from Commonwealth: Buildings Codes of Australia/National Construction Codes requirements, Disability Access and Discrimination legislation, Taxation rulings, nor such reporting as that undertaken by the Tenants’ Union Victoria for the Coroner following the deaths of three International Students. Then there’s the Australian Criminality Report and…

So, is deeming such changes to homes - ‘complying or exempt’ - contempt of Commonwealth Legislation?

Homes not Hotels Communities not Transit Zones People before Profits

Neighbours not Strangers