Byron Shire Council’s plan to impose a 90-day cap on un-hosted short-term holiday letting across much of the Shire will be examined by the Independent Planning Commission during a three-day public hearing this week.
The three-day hearing, held at the Byron Community Centre from February 21–23, will give stakeholders on both sides of the holiday letting debate the chance to put their cases to the commission.
‘Councils and communities around NSW and Australia are watching this with a lot of interest because the problems in the Byron Shire are now playing out in their towns as well,’ Mayor Michael Lyon said. ‘Like us, they want a measure of control to ensure that the broader housing needs of their communities are met, so that key workers have places to live’.
The short-term holiday letting industry says 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 Byron Shire, arguing that just 6.5 per cent of the Shire’s housing stock is short-term holiday letting.
Byron Council says these figures are false and a misrepresentation of the facts. Visit www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au for more info.
