Draft Short-Term Rental Accommodation - Local Planning Policy

In 2025, the State Government initiated reforms to the Short-term Rental Accommodation sector, including directing local government to amend planning frameworks. As part of implementing these reforms, the City has prepared a new local planning policy to provide guidance and certainty to operators, customers and neighbours of short-term rental accommodation.

At its Ordinary Council Meeting (OCM) on 9 December 2025, Council resolved to adopt the Draft Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) Local Planning Policy and Guidelines for the purpose of public advertising. See Project Background on the right-hand side of this page for more information.

The purpose of the draft policy and guidelines is to provide guidance to minimise the potential impacts of Short-Term Rental Accommodation (such as Airbnb and Stayz) on established residential areas.

The draft policy (click to read) provides a framework to manage the use of residential properties for unhosted Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) to maintain the amenity of the surrounding neighbourhoods, including:

• Assessment Criteria, including preferred locations, car parking, numbers of guests, considerations for houses, units and apartments, and signage
• Application requirements
• Consultation
• Conditions of Development Approval
• Compliance
• Other approvals (such as building approvals)

The draft guidelines (click to read) provide a checklist for owners to make an application for Development Approval to operate a STRA, including:

• Cover letter and application form
• Template for strata consent (if required)
• Site and floor plans
• Location justification
• Management Plan
• Guest code of conduct
• Bushfire evacuation plan (if required)

Community Engagement

The community engagement period for the draft Policy and associated Guidelines opened Thursday 26 February 2026 and closed on Friday 20 March 2026 (22 days). The aim of the engagement was to get community feed back on the draft policy and guidelines. 26 responses were received.

A report on the outcomes of the community engagement can be downloaded here

Next steps

All submissions on the draft policy and guidelines will be reviewed and presented to Council on 23 June 2026 to make a decision on the final policy.