26.5 C
Byron Shire
March 28, 2024

Residents push back against holiday letting interests

Latest News

Man charged over domestic violence and pursuit offences – Tweed Heads

A man has been charged following a pursuit near Tweed Heads on Monday.

Other News

It’s a biggest little town festival! 

Supporters, performers, and volunteers gathered to launch the Mullum Laneways Festival 2024 last Friday. 

What the duck!

Most days I ask myself ‘what the duck’ is happening here? How could Trump be president again if he...

Seize the Decade report outlines benefits of renewables

The Climate Council says many more Australian families can directly benefit from rooftop solar and batteries under a new plan that spells out how we can electrify the nation and cut climate pollution this decade.

Caper Byron Bay Food & Culture Festival

Caper Byron Bay Food & Culture Festival returns to Byron Bay in May, and this year ‘locals favourite’ pub...

Bruns-Billinudgel RSL marches on

Though recently the membership of the Brunswick Heads–Billinudgel RSL sub-Branch has grown, the numbers are still very low and if there is not a continual increase, this chapter faces closing.

Coveted Wollumbin Art Award open for young and old

Are you an artist in the Northern Rivers? Now is the time to get your art ready and submitted to the Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre’s coveted biennial Wollumbin Art Award.

Hundreds of Byron residents have signed a new petition supporting a 90-day cap on un-hosted short-term holiday letting as way of addressing the critical lack of housing in the Shire.

The petition, which stood at 550 signatures and rising as of Tuesday morning, is part of the Byron Deserves Balance campaign, launched on Monday by a group of long-term locals.

‘So many people who used to live and work in Byron have had to move away because their rent has gone up substantially or landlords have decided to short term holiday let – it’s changed the whole town,’ the co-founder of the campaign, Liz Friend said.

‘A real estate agent said to me last year, “Well Liz, the rich move in and the poor just have to move on… that’s the way it is”.’

‘But the last thing we need in Byron is a playground for the mega wealthy, many of whom don’t even live here and don’t care about the quality of community. There needs to be a more equitable sharing of opportunity for all, not just a select few.’

Liz Friend and Ron Curran launching their “Byron Deserves Balance” campaign. Image supplied

The launch of the new campaign is the latest chapter in the ongoing debate over restricting short-term holiday letting in the Byron Shire.

A key moment in the saga came in 2019 when the then Planning Minister, Rob Stokes, promised that Byron would be allowed to impose a 90-day cap as a way of encouraging landlords to put their houses on the long-term rental market.

Three years later, the State Government has not only failed to deliver on that promise but appears to have deliberately impeded efforts to make it a reality.

Driven by the housing crisis, and the catastrophic floods of February/March, Byron Council has renewed its efforts to have the cap imposed, placing a new Planning Proposal to this effect on public exhibition.

While many residents support the plan, a group of business owners, calling themselves Byron Deserves Better, launched a campaign in a bid to derail the new policy.

The similarly named, Byron Deserves Balance campaign, is a direct response to that opposition.

The business owners behind Byron Deserves Better claim that imposing a 90-day cap would ‘remove the families who stay in holiday homes in the Byron Shire’, thus removing ‘$267 million from the local economy’ and jeopardising ‘1,448 local jobs’.

It also asserts that Council has grossly exaggerated the figures in relation to the pervasiveness of short-term holiday letting in the Shire, pointing to the fact that just 6.5 per cent of the Shire’s housing stock has been officially reported as short-term holiday letting.

By contrast, Council says that 35 per cent of the Shire’s housing stock is being used for this purpose.

The claims from both sides have sparked debate over what the true impact of restricting holiday letting in the Shire would be.

When challenged on its assertions about the economic impact of imposing the cap, Byron Deserves Better said ‘we stand by our claims and we stand by our campaign’.

‘The data has been sourced from Tourism Research Australia (TRA), the leading tourism economics and research body for the Australian Government, and also from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS),’ the group said in a statement to The Echo.

However, further scrutiny reveals that neither the TRA nor the ABS have undertaken any kind of detailed evaluation of how a cap on holiday letting would affect the local economy.

Local governnents are trying to take the housing crisis into their own hands with the Ballina Shire Council due to release its latest affordable housing strategy soon

Byron Deserves Better has also incorrectly stated on its website that Mayor Michael Lyon is proposing a cap ‘on all short-term rental accommodation’ in Byron Bay.

This ignores the fact that, under the Council’s proposal, significant parts of Byron Bay, Suffolk Park and Brunswick Heads would have holiday letting 365 days a year.

Nevertheless, an independent Economic Impact Analysis (EIS) commissioned by the NSW Department of Planning in 2021 did recommend that a 180-day cap rather than a 90-day limit would be the best option from an economic perspective.

The analysis, by consulting group Urbis, found that this option would provide the most substantial benefits across the various stakeholder groups while minimising detrimental impacts on the visitor market.

But a peer review of this analysis commissioned by Council questioned these findings, both in terms of the methodology used, and the underlying assumptions made.

A key argument of this review, as well as those who support the 90-day cap, is that any policy must give due consideration to the social impacts of un-restricted holiday letting as well as the economic ones.

‘We need to get this housing crisis under control,’ Ms Friend said.

‘Turning so many properties into short term holiday lets for the benefit of a few does not serve the greater majority. It is not the answer.

‘There must be a balance between the permanent, long term residents of Byron Bay and wealthy tourists.  The community is losing out through the monopolistic attitude of a few.’


Support The Echo

Keeping the community together and the community voice loud and clear is what The Echo is about. More than ever we need your help to keep this voice alive and thriving in the community.

Like all businesses we are struggling to keep food on the table of all our local and hard working journalists, artists, sales, delivery and drudges who keep the news coming out to you both in the newspaper and online. If you can spare a few dollars a week – or maybe more – we would appreciate all the support you are able to give to keep the voice of independent, local journalism alive.

4 COMMENTS

  1. FAKE NEWS is being spread by the local business owners and owners of the holiday lets management businesses who are behind the Byron Deserves Better (BDB) anti 90day cap campaign in holiday lets. They should be ashamed of themselves for spreading lies such as “$267million ripped out of the Byron economy” and “1448 jobs lost”. They stated that Tourism Research Australia said this. This government body has denied making these statements. BDB Stated that the Urbis report reported this. No such statement was made in the report. Now they say that the figures came from the ABS. What rubbish! The ABS does not present such figures.
    The BDB group have lost all credibility. Donald Trump would have been proud of them with the way they have spread FAKE NEWS.

  2. Good on you Liz and co! Great to see people standing up for values other than the almighty dollar. There is more to life, and that is so much of what Byron’s appeal used to be about – it was a community that lived a life that wasn’t based entirely on $$$ and had other values like community connection, environmental stewardship and genuine spirituality at its heart. For a while. … now it’s become a disney-fake version of those things. But it’s good to see that there are some folks who remember something different and better, and are standing up for that.

  3. This is not just a Byron Bay problem, it is apparent in most nearby towns too.
    Rents in Lismore now are approaching $600+ a week for modest 1930s weatherboard x3 bedroomed cottages.
    But this is currently being slightly mitigated [supply-side] by investors cashing-in on cheap flood-devastated properties for renovation and then rental.
    Of course, the avalanche of new ‘covid-refugees’ hasn’t helped matters for our locally employed people or pensioners either.

  4. Tourism requires management, not a more is better approach.
    Why can’t accomm in Byron town centre be allowed holiday letting, while in neighbourhoods it is restricted?
    The latest BSC proposal has not had much thought go in to it. A bit like the parking situation, that has squeezed parking into local neighbourhoods and squeezed out access to sports fields & tennis courts, etc.
    One irrefutable fact is that the population shift to the corridor from the Central coast to Noosa is going to continue as people sell up in major centres.
    We need a proper 100 year plan to deal with this seismic shift so that public services, infrastructure, and housing is well managed into the future with a focus on sustainability.
    This silly squabbling over trying to hold back the incoming tide is pointless and unproductive.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Where should affordable housing go in Tweed Shire?

Should affordable and social housing in the Tweed Shire be tucked away in a few discreet corners? Perhaps it should be on the block next to where you live?

Making Lismore Showground accessible to everyone

The Lismore Showground isn’t just a critical local community asset that plays host to a number of major events each year, but has also been used as an evacuation centre during past natural disasters in the region. 

Iconic Lennox beach shed upgraded –  not demolished

Lennox Park and the shelter shed has now been upgraded and reopened.

Govt cost-shifting ‘erodes financially sustainable local government’

Byron Shire Council looks set to add its voice to the growing chorus calling on the state government to stop shifting responsibilities and costs onto local government.