‘Tsunami’ of Visitor Accommodation Applications

Media release – Nathan Volf, Greens Candidate for Hobart City Council, 25 July 2022

ALARM AT TSUNAMI OF VISITOR ACCOMMODATION APPLICATIONS

The floodgates have opened for Hobart house owners who are applying for development approval to turn their houses into suburban mini-hotels, according to Greens Local Government candidate Nathan Volf.

Council’s planning meeting is considering 3 applications and 4 residential properties being turned into visitor accommodation.

This number is increasing before the possibility of planning scheme amendments may come into affect. These amendments will ban any more applications of whole houses for short stay accommodation, as there are currently an unacceptable number of homes being lost from the market.

I am pleased there is transparency in these decisions on short stay by Hobart’s elected members. It brings it home to the community that short stay is killing the rental market, and I will do what I can if elected to stop this rental market mayhem.

The decreasing housing stock has a negative impact on the ability of younger people moving out of their parents’ homes to live, work and remain in Hobart.

The social housing waiting list has doubled in the last 8 years. In April, the priority housing waiting list grew to 4,382 people. Whilst this is due to multiple factors, a large contributor to this is the rising rental prices. Hobart has been at the top of the charts for Most Unaffordable Australian City for Renters for too long. Action must be taken.

I have a message I would like to address directly to land owners: Please, reconsider your current or ongoing applications for your properties for short stay visitor accommodation. Turn your property into a long term home for families, couples or single people that wish to work, live and remain in our beautiful city. Your short stay visitor accommodation property could instead be a home for a student seeking to begin a life of independence away from their parents or to study closer to the university. Perhaps it could be the long term solution for a doctor and their family wishing to make a seachange to support our understaffed health facilities. Maybe your accommodation could be the ground floor for a couple that wish to start their own business.

The current City Council is doing what it can at the moment with the elected members often divided in a 3 vs 3 vote. If elected, I will advocate for the use of council land to build homes, for the retrofitting of above-shop or currently empty dwelling apartments, and the retrofitting of buildings. With these changes, all places could be made into warm, safe and long term homes.

Hobart has the ability to be everybody’s home, but Hobart needs more homes to meet this goal – not hotels.