Our recent story about how the Building Appeals Board in Victoria had decreed that short-term rentals in residential apartment blocks are in contravention of the building codes and are therefore illegal illustrates the huge gulf in attitudes to apartment living between the southern states and Queensland.
Earlier this year, the opposite decision was made in the Sunshine State, according to this press release from the Queensland branch of Strata Community Australia, the strata management industry body. A proposal by the Home Unit Owners Association and the Australian Hoteliers Association to ban short-stay letting in residential buildings, was rejected by the Australian Building Codes Board (ABCB), based on the effect it would have on Queensland’s property and tourism industry.
The rejection of the move – supported by the Queensland chapter of SCA which called the proposal an “act of ignorance” – provides proof, if it were needed, that in Queensland apartments are in the main run by and for investors. For instance, Queensland strata legislation specifically allows developers to pre-sell long-term management rights to buildings without any consultation with the owners – something that would be illegal elsewhere.
With the majority of developments having been built in the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, tourism dominates strata thinking in Queensland. It’s no accident that a company set up to run Schoolies Week holidays in Queensland moved into apartment building management a few years ago and until recently strata law was administered by the Queensland government’s department of tourism
The more recent ruling in Victoria followed efforts to curb the appalling behaviour of short-term renters in the Watergate building in Melbourne. Short-term lets can be a nightmare for permanent residents of apartments – both owners and tenants. People on holiday – especially if it’s for an event like a wedding or a football match – behave very differently from those who are there for the long term.
Noise issues and generally antisocial behaviour can’t be easily dealt with because the miscreants are long gone by the time the wheels of strata justice start to turn.
There is a place for short-term lets in Australia – serviced apartments and dedicated buildings or sections of buildings are fine. But in some areas – like Byron Bay and the Central Coast – there are moves to ban them in HOUSES, according to this story.
So if they are causing problems in stand-alone houses, you can imagine the issues in apartment blocks. At worst, short-term lets are the parasites of residential blocks. They take advantage of all the good things in a well-run building and then undermine them.
The real value of the recent Victoria ruling isn’t that it will see illegal short-term lets wiped out overnight. But it gives owners corporations and local councils another stick with which to beat the landlords and agencies who benefit from them at everyone else’s expense … apart from in Queensland.