Perth Voice Interactive

STIRLING council wants short-term rentals like Airbnb restricted to having just eight guests and able to operate for 90 days a year without approval.

Short-term rentals came up in the City’s planning and development committee this week after it was given an extended deadline to respond to changes the Cook government wants to make to regulations that cover the sector.

Stirling first tried to crack down on Airbnb-style rentals in 2017 ago after complaints it was affecting long-term rental supplies and were often being booked by people who only wanted somewhere to party.

But it was blocked by the state’s planning department which wanted to wait for the outcome of an inquiry it was planning the following year so it could formulate a consistent approach for councils.

The results of that 2018 inquiry are starting to filter through, with a $5000 incentive scheme to convince landlords to put short-term rentals back on the long-term market announced in November last year and extended by premier Roger Cook on Tuesday this week.

Mr Cook also announced the short-term incentive had been at the heart of a new $5000 incentive to get vacant land back on the market.

“Western Australia’s nation-leading economy and attractive lifestyle are driving significant demand for housing, so we are leaving no stone unturned in our work to boost supply of homes,” Mr Cook said.

Changes to local planning scheme regulations to give councils more power to control short-term rentals were also recommended by a report from the inquiry, and the council’s planning staff say the pressure on housing stock and affordability has only been increasing since then.

“In recent years, this trend has become more acute and also applies the metropolitan area, with rental vacancies for houses sitting at 0.7 per cent in March 2024,” they noted in the agenda.

The council’s planners have mostly agreed with the government’s response, but say its proposal to let Airbnbers take in 12 guests for an unhosted property is too generous and they should be limited to eight, as it had first proposed back in 2018.