Update: This morning the Council’s Urban Development and Transport Committee approved the public notification of a proposed change to the District Plan. The proposal relates to the use of residential dwellings for visitor accommodation (e.g. Airbnb and HomeAway/Bookabach-type activities), and has hit the headlines recently, with some individuals and groups arguing the changes are unnecessary or go too far, and others that they don’t go far enough. What’s being proposed, and what are the next steps in the process?
In February this year I attended a Papanui drop-in session as part of the Council’s consultation on potential changes to the Christchurch District Plan around managing home-share accommodation. What I found interested at the time was that of the estimated 1600-plus listings in Christchurch on the likes of Air BnB etc for unhosted accommodation (where the owner did not live on site), only a ‘handful’ were compliant with the existing District Plan requirements, specifically the need for a Resource Consent for a property to be used in that way.
Continue reading “Plan change proposed for visitor accommodation”
Simon Britten 