Hawkesbury is Sydney’s playground, and many businesses provide overnight and short stay accommodation for residents living in the Sydney basin.

Discussion on whether these proposed changes would alleviate the current housing crisis had participants expressing sympathy and concern for people seeking long term rental accommodation.

There were also comments that often short-term accommodation was not suitable for long term rental due to inadequate kitchen and laundry facilities. Further the lack of public transport and the price of petrol adds substantially to the cost of living in rural Hawkesbury.

There was general concern about the cost of properties and ability of families to house their adult children. It was especially irksome that all surrounding Councils allowed detached second dwellings on properties, but Hawkesbury doesn’t.

Comments that summed up the mood of the meeting were:

·      “I feel really sorry for people who are trying to find long term rental accommodation and for my grown-up kids because I don’t know how they will ever afford to buy a place, and I don’t know if these changes will make any difference, but we have to try to do something”.

·      “Turning short term accommodation into long term accommodation in our rural area is going to do little to address the housing shortage which is in urban areas close to services. Not only is our accommodation not suitable for long term rental but people need to be able to afford an extra $100 per week for petrol to get to our service centres.”

·      “One way of addressing this problem would be to have Hawkesbury Council do what everyone else does, allow detached second dwellings as this has the potential to double the number of houses in our rural areas.”

REFERENCES:

Discussion paper on short- and long-term rental accommodation https://pp.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/draftplans/under-consideration/discussion-paper-short-and-long-term-rental-accommodation

BLOR BC undertook to continue the conduct a survey of short stay accommodation businesses to gauge responses to the NSW Government discussion paper on Short Term and Long-Term Rental Accommodation.