'I Spy With My Little Eye'

In Regional NSW and in our cities, Real Estate Agents are actively directing residential homes away from residents and onto booking platforms. Beachside Breaks and Luxico are among some of Airbnb biggest operators: no need to issue a lease, produce condition reports, collect/lodge/reimburse bonds etc – just much higher commissions. Airbnb landlords too are swapping notes on social media on how to skirt any limits imposed on their illegal practices and advising where best to place hidden cameras following the discovery of a camera in a smoke alarm in one Airbnb bedroom.

Given that Airbnb, Stayz/Expedia still haven’t disclosed their total spend on trying to ‘buy and lie’ their way to controlling our homes, there’s a timely article on political lobbyists here; it features Stayz/Expedia’s Lobbyists Barton Deakin.

The Owners Corporation Network claims to represent those living in Strata – seems they don’t even represent many within their own outfit – and wants to offer Government a ‘get out of jail’ card. They’re proposing that neighbours within apartment buildings decide whether or not to retrospectively rezone a building (by way of a by-law) and pay all costs to operate as an unregulated hotel. They’re hoping too that Government will in turn fund them to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Let the strata wars begin…big bucks for strata lawyers guaranteed.

Mosman Council is just one local ‘authority’ who this week unanimously passed motions flipping responsibility for short-term rentals to State Government and control of any Code of Conduct to the short-term oligarchs. Read their Draft Minutes here. Following is NSW case law on this issue:

“…it appears that the council has been content for the Court to resolve the matter. On any view, this is unsatisfactory and amounts to an effective abrogation by the council of its fundamental duties and responsibilities. These duties include, amongst other things, to manage development and coordinate the orderly and economic use of land within the area under its control. By leaving it to the Court to determine this important issue, the council, by its inaction, has, in my opinion, failed to fulfil its core functions and has failed its constituents.”

Are our Media complicit in all this…their silence is deafening.

Angry? You bet we are.

Homes not Hotels Communities not Transit Zones People before Profits Neighbours not Strangers