Doug Luke, coordinator, Victims of Holiday Letting, Byron Bay
Nine hundred holiday lets in Byron Shire!
That’s 900 houses without permanent residents. No neighbour you can get to know and help build our community. For the sake of all Byron residents who have lost the amenity and social cohesion of their neighbourhoods we ask the holiday-let owners to please:
1. Stop the offensive noise and other behaviour problems that come from guests.
2. Support the draft Development Control Plan in Byron Shire Council’s Short Term Holiday Accommodation Strategy. This will legally assist you to control recalcitrant guests.
Victims of Holiday Letting (VOHL) has worked positively with Council in developing protection for our neighbourhood amenity. VOHL is the group that is saying yes to positive change. Please actively support Byron Council’s best-practice Development Control Plan by making a submission before December 8. Tell them how you feel, what you think and, most importantly, what you want.
I have read council’s strategy and don’t agree with the position taken where they have scrapped precincts and zones. The proposed DCP will go a long way to controlling the behaviour of problem holiday let guests. it will mean that holiday let owners will have to put in a lot more effort than what they have been used to. Some won’t be prepared to put in the effort. The industry will be better off without them. I hope the industry accepts the DCP as they have a very poor image in the community due to the destruction of community amenity. Many equate holiday let owners with criminals. Nobody that I know wants a holiday let as their neighbour.
If a Shire wide survey was undertaken amongst the permanent residents and the question asked “Who would like to live next door to an “out of control” and unregulated holiday let” then there would be no takers. This would include any holiday let owners who live in the shire. The majority of the carpetbaggers live elsewhere.
Unfortunately, there are a large number of permanent residents who do live in this situation. Can’t the holiday let owners understand the huge amount of anger and frustration that is directed towards holiday lets.
Strong regulations are needed and get the holiday lets under control.