SCA Report

Airbnb: Has time run out?

By Laura Bos,

General Manager, SCA (Qld)

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull once spoke of wanting Australia to be more “agile, nimble and innovative”, before going on to reference his love for Uber, Airbnb, and other similar “sharing economy” platforms. This was almost a decade ago now, and certainly excitement was thick in the air about alternatives to traditional business models. The sharing economy was going to change everything for the bett er, or so it seemed.

Looking at this now, it probably feels a bit more like Enron than Google when it comes to a lot of these companies. Ridesharing is yet to really turn a profi t and in the opinion of many, resembles the traditional taxi service it was purporting to replace through ‘superior service or pricing’. Food delivery apps have also rarely been profi table – notably Deliveroo has just exited the market. But perhaps the biggest cause for public policy concern out of all these sharingstyle apps is Airbnb. Airbnb has been the cause of much disruption in our neighbourhoods and cities. As cities rush to fi nd the regulatory solution to aff ordability problems, the Airbnb phenomenon is singled out as one of the key factors contributing to disruption to neighbourhood, building amenities, and oft en property damage. Put bluntly, a lot of people are not pleased with the current regulatory framework around Airbnb. Reports of disruptive parties, soaring rents, and anti-social behaviour are extremely common. Various councils have tried, with what limited power they have, to reduce the number of properties being put into the short-term lett ing pool. The problem is though, councils do not have limitless resources to patrol every door, nor do we want them to. SCA (Qld) doesn’t support mass surveillance for any reason! So, to paraphrase that muchloved tune from The Sound of Music: how do we deal with a problem like Airbnb? Anecdotally, it is probably one of the biggest issues we face in the Queensland strata sector and there have been some very interesting solutions put forward.

Is management rights the solution?

isn’t the solution, as they have no power to enforce by-laws generally, only monitor compliance with them.

What are the alternatives then?

Empowering bodies corporate SCA (Qld) believes we need to empower committ ees. People who sit on body corporate committ ees generally live on site and committ ees have the power to enforce by-laws. So the time is right to empower bodies corporate and their committ ees to substantially regulate or ban Airbnb within their communities. A threshold of a special resolution for such a bylaw would be a reasonable one.

Whether it’s an ability to outright ban, to enforce scheme by-laws against absentee owners of Airbnb let properties, or to regulate the fashion in which Airbnb is conducted in a scheme, the easiest way to deal with this problem is to grant lot owners community autonomy. At present s 180(3) of the BCCMA reads: by-laws cannot restrict the type of residential use.” This is a clear legislative prohibition on a by-law banning short-term lett ing, which has been upheld in adjudicators’ orders. The law is fl uid and society is too. At the time of its draft ing, the BCCMA was world-leading legislation and the notion of pressing a few butt ons on a smartphone to book a party house for you and 15 mates in a unit complex in suburban Brisbane sounded like stuff that belonged in Star Trek. Yet here we are. This exact hypothetical is now one of the most signifi cant issues in Queensland, with the State Government announcing a broad and sweeping inquiry into Airbnb and its eff ects on the Queensland economy. Whilst SCA (Qld) can’t preempt the outcome of that inquiry, what we can say is that we will be fi ghting hard to resolve this issue in bodies corporate and supporting the State Government to consider empowering them to solve this problem themselves.