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The City of Yarra should consider taxing Airbnb hosts to incentivise landlords to lease their homes on the private rental market or sell up to ease the housing crisis, according to a Greens councillor.<\/p>\n
Annual council charges for short-term accommodation hosts already exist in Bass Coast Shire, Frankston, Mornington Peninsula and most recently Warrnambool Shire, but no inner-city councils have yet moved to regulate Airbnb properties.<\/p>\n
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Yarra councillor Sophie Wade wants the council to look at options to tax Airbnb hosts.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Luis Ascui<\/cite><\/p>\n Greens councillor Sophie Wade will at Tuesday night\u2019s council meeting present a motion requesting the City of Yarra investigate the merits of introducing regulations \u2013 such as fees, registration or nightly caps \u2013 on short-term accommodation in the municipality, which takes in the suburbs of Richmond, Abbotsford, Fitzroy and Collingwood.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the face of a cost-of-living and rental crisis, and in a city where 50 per cent of our population rents, it is worth Yarra Council and the Yarra community considering options in this space,\u201d Wade\u2019s motion reads.<\/p>\n The councillor bought her first home in the City of Yarra \u2013 an apartment that was previously operated as an Airbnb.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m a first home owner who bought something that someone offloaded. I\u2019m the case study of the exact kind of thing I\u2019m trying to achieve with this motion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n According to open-source database Inside Airbnb, there were 1608 properties available in the City of Yarra on Airbnb in March this year. According to census data, there are almost 50,000 dwellings in Yarra.<\/p>\n About 80 per cent of the Airbnb properties listed are listings of entire homes, and 34.5 per cent of hosts had multiple listings.<\/p>\n In November 2021, the NSW government introduced short-stay regulations, limiting the number of days a property could be on the market to 180 days of the year and no more than three consecutive months. It has recently extended the rules to other regional areas.<\/p>\n No such laws have been introduced in Victoria. The Victorian Greens have called on the Andrews government to introduce a 90-day cap, a public register of short-stay providers and more powers for owners corporations to regulate Airbnbs in their buildings.<\/p>\n \u201cI would really welcome state involvement in this, but if the state government is not acting, then I want to know what Yarra can do to solve the problem ourselves,\u201d Wade said.<\/p>\n Collingwood Airbnb host Jane Blair said it would be \u201cpretty outrageous\u201d if the council made any move to dictate to owners how they could use their properties.<\/p>\n The 33-year-old was living in her apartment, then moved in with a partner and listed her property on Airbnb. She said renting out her home on the private market to a long-term tenant would not cover her mortgage repayments now that interest rates had risen.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m self-employed, it\u2019s my property and my retirement plan basically,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n But Blair said she would be \u201chappy to pay a small fee\u201d to run her Airbnb, if the revenue raised by council went towards helping people in crisis.<\/p>\n Cities around the world are cracking down on Airbnbs: New York no longer allows full homes to be rented on the platform, London has a 90-night cap and Philadelphia requires hosts to obtain a hotel licence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important thing is people\u2019s right to have a safe and affordable home is more important than people\u2019s right to an investment,\u201d Wade said. Michael Crosby, head of public policy for Airbnb in Australia and New Zealand, said neither the company \u201cnor host community\u201d was opposed to regulation, but wanted it to come from state government. \u201cWe support the introduction of statewide frameworks \u2013 which includes registration and a code of conduct \u2013 rather than a council-by-council approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cHousing affordability is a challenging and complicated issue. The causes differ from place to place, with legacy factors \u2013 which often pre-date the founding of Airbnb by decades \u2013 ranging from the supply of new homes, the ratio of public housing, the number of empty dwellings and rooms, interest rates and broader economic conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cAirbnb supports the introduction of opt-in tourism levies to fund much-needed community infrastructure and services \u2014 for example, key worker housing projects \u2014 in communities across Australia.\u201d<\/p>\n Yarra Ranges Council has previously asked the state government to step in and regulate short-term accommodation, as has the Victorian Tourism Industry Council and Accommodation Association over concerns about a lack of housing supply for local workers.<\/p>\n The Greens lost their majority hold of the City of Yarra council last year after former Mayor Gabrielle de Vietri was elected to the Victorian parliament.<\/p>\n A spokeswoman for the Victorian government did not answer whether the government was considering any further regulation of the sector, but instead pointed to a 2019 change to the Owners Corporation Act that allows action against Airbnb owners and guests when common property gets damaged.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have introduced laws to limit disruption caused by unruly short-stay guests in apartments, and continue to monitor the wider impacts of the sector,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n <\/i>The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. <\/i><\/b>Sign up here<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nVictorian councils with rules on short-stay accommodation already<\/h3>\n
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