Estimates - Housing and Planning - Planning Mechanisms - Short Stay Changes
Ms Burnet - Minister, I'm pretty shocked by your response in relation to the planning mechanisms that Hobart City Council have tried to use and now have available to them. We know that there's been a huge drop in rental availability. I think it's halved, according to an Anglicare figure over, is it 10 years?, which was released earlier this year. How long do you think, through this planning mechanism, it might take for the City of Hobart to have those changes? If they're successful, how long do you think it might take?
Mr VINCENT - Because that's technical side of things for the State Planning Office, I'll ask Sean to answer that.
Mr McPHAIL - Obviously, the process that it takes, or the time it takes, will depend on the complexity of the proposal put forward. There's a process which is set out in the legislation and that's generally around about a six- to eight-month process to undertake that. I imagine there'd probably be a fair bit of interest from the community in a proposal to change their provisions to do with short-stay accommodation, so that would need to be worked through and, obviously, there'd be a number of submissions and hearings that would be involved in that process as well.
Ms Burnet - So it still could take quite some time. I've just got a question still on short stay. According to the new Consumer, Building and Occupational Services (CBOS) short-stay dashboard, there are now 9669 individual properties in the short-stay market in Tasmania. Of these 4719 are secondary residences, i.e. whole homes or non-hosted properties. Shelter Tas and its members are concerned about the impacts of the growing numbers of short-stay accommodation properties in Tasmania, as you're well aware, while residents and key workers who power this city are unable to find homes. There is a clear solution here, which is to amend the state planning system. I'm just curious as to why, why you won't do this, why this won't occur?
Mr VINCENT - As I've said to Mr Bayley, happy to look at suggestions in this area. But as I've also said, in my relatively short time in this ministry, I have been aware that there are planning provisions that could be used there that haven't chosen to be used fully for various reasons. But happy to continue discussions on that, Chair.
Ms Burnet - Minister, just in regard to your response to my question about short-stay earlier. I'm not sure if you got the advice from the State Planning Office, but whoever it was, would you table the advice that you have provided about how a council should go about being able to refuse short-stay permit applications, and you said 'what they could be doing but aren't,' or would you be prepared to provide a briefing to myself and a representative from the Hobart City Council as to what they should do if you're not going to table this advice?
Mr VINCENT - Very happy to have a discussion. As I suggested with the SPO on that, I don't think I've had written a brief on that. It's been verbal. So I'm more than happy to have a briefing and discussion point on that.
Ms Burnet - So you don't want to table it?
Mr VINCENT - No, if it was a briefing, we would be happy to do the briefing.