How
many people slept under your roof last night?
Will
the spy in the sky have reported any extra visitors you accommodated to the
shire? Do you even know how many you’re allowed to have tucked up under your
roof? And who cares how many people you choose to cram into your house anyway?
As I
was driving to Busso yesterday I started to think of some of the issues
surrounding residential vs tourism accommodation. Because the proposed Karridale
housing estates are predicated on investment/second holiday homes it is an
issue that interests me.
I already
know elderly people in Augusta who are suffering greatly from the impost of
having their residential streets turned into short term holiday letting
properties. After living quiet lives among people they trust these old people now
fear to open their doors, because they experience large mobs of young people who
are in town to party (yes - hard to believe but even in Augusta we have
visitors partying!)
The
visitors are not actually committing crimes or even being unpleasant, they are
just exuberant, loud, and in most cases much bigger than the elderly residents.
From
the time the Molloy’s landed, as the first European settlers, until very
recently this whole area enjoyed a culture that welcomed only a very occasional
visitor, but otherwise lived with an incredibly stable community. MCDavies once
had an unfortunate incident with a passing Afghan, but apart from that the
locals fight among themselves without any real fear.
The fact
that the majority of people were engaged in farming or the timber trade made
the residents firmly grounded to this place, and really it wasn’t somewhere
people just travelled through. The great distance and lack of decent roads made
this a destination for only a few regular visitors each summer, and these folk
would stay for extended periods as families, and mostly returned every year to
stay in the same guest house or camp site. Therefore local people have never needed
to adjust to a culture of transient visitors drifting through their community.
Until
the recent new technologies living far away from the city meant that humans
had to adopt a strategy of growing food, or else live a grazing life following
whatever bush foods could be found. Europeans generally chose to grow food and to
develop established settlement patterns.
There
is no right or wrong in such matters it is just how we are.
Our European
based culture here in this corner of the SW has always been very stable. The
remote rural community has always survived sustainably with a reliance on
reciprocity, which needed trust, which obviously needs stability.
Now
the shire have introduced strategies that no longer honour the culture of the families
who have lived here in this way for over a century. The shire has broken the
social contract and expect the long term residents to not only live with the
consequences but for them to pay for the privilege of having their stability
disrupted.
The
following is a rather dry exposition on a few issues that can occur when a
residential house becomes short stay holiday house. The purple text is from the
shire minutes, and the observations are mine alone. I always like to be better
informed and so please let me know if I’ve misunderstood this whole situation.
The house involved here happens to be in Gnarabup.
From page 89 of Local Draft Tourism
Strategy dated August 2012
• The need for a holiday house activity to be appropriately
managed to ensure that it will not
cause nuisance or annoyance to the owners of adjoining or nearby properties.
• An indication that if the Shire has received complaints
regarding the holiday house activity, a further approval may not be
granted. (my underlining)
There is already evidence of
complaints about residential properties used as holiday houses. The shire knows
that is the case and so why do we tolerate investors buying residential
properties and then using them as short-stay holiday accommodation?
Ask why?
The following notes are extracted
from a planning officer’s report on a Gnarabup property, but it could happen
anywhere in this shire. If anyone has ever experienced the stress of living
alongside noisy neighbours then they may have some empathy with the complainant
in this case.
The
following issues have been raised by the objectors (summary):
• used
as a ‘party’ house – i.e., party all night, noise etc;
• I work
on the weekends and the night time noise level impacts ability to sleep;
• I have
had to contact the manager many times and on occasions the police;
• I have
tried to address the issues myself but to no success;
•
parking issues – number of cars parked everywhere – verge etc;
•
rubbish bins overflowing.
This
is interesting, because among the solutions proposed the owners responded;
There
are currently 2 normal bins and 2 recycle bins. We will provide an additional
normal bin and recycle bin. ....
Waste
is obviously an issue when possibly 14 adults are sharing one residential house
the amount of rubbish will be more than a family might create, especially if
they are eating take-aways etc
Does
anyone know how much more rubbish these residential houses turned into tourist
accommodation generate than a typical residential property? Are the shire
keeping metrics?
Clearly
any initiatives that the community might undertake to educate our community along
the reduce, reuse and recycle message will be wasted here, as the visitors are
transient.
Are
the properties rated as commercial and charged for waste disposal accordingly?
How do
the kerbside collectors know which properties are allowed 2 or more wheelie
bins per week?
Letting
Conditions of the property will be amended, so that any call outs for noise to
the police or the managing agent will result in a cost recover from the tenants
bond of costs so incurred.
Once
people are asked to pay for anything the “social contract” is broken and they may
well feel as though they have paid for the right to party hard and loud, and they
really won’t care if they lose the bond.
How
much is the bond? Split
14 ways it isn’t likely to be too much, and where is the compensation for the
neighbour? How
could there ever be compensation for a person having their home life disrupted
in this way, week after week?
... In
the Letting Conditions, noise after the hour of 11pm will not be allowed.
But
how will anyone stop this?
And
if you are raising a family how can 11pm be a reasonable time for noise to
cease?
The
Letting Conditions will be amended advising that all cars must be maintained on
the property driveway (we do have a long driveway).
There
is no way of enforcing this.
Notices to the above effect will be
provided in the house compendium of rules and also erected in the kitchen so
that it is clearly visible...
We know that permanent
residents who are sent fire break notices every year do not always read them
and then comply with rules, and those are rules intended to save lives and
property. Are any of us really convinced that partying visitors will be
compliant with a note pinned up in the kitchen?
Does anyone, other than the shire
employee issuing the holiday house approvals, have a reasonable expectation
that at 10.55pm a responsible party goer will hear the alarm they set earlier and
immediately insist that all their drunken friends switch off the music and
speak softy?
Is that how you were in your
late teens and twenties?
Did you want to be the party
pooper, the wet blanket?
Me neither.
And when one of the visitors drives
back to the house to change quickly, before going out again they may not want
to park their car in a line on a driveway. They may want to park in the most
convenient way for them, not for the neighbour who they don’t know and will
never see again when the week is over.
The
house occupancy has been reduced as noted above and in accordance with the
previously issued conditions of the Council and of course this will be
maintained.
Of course.
This is the business owner
reassuring the shire that from this moment on they will only let the house to
compliant holiday visitors who undertake a head count before bed time.
Who is going to check how many
people stay here?
If they hook up when they are
out for the evening are the bed police going to be waiting to check on numbers? Is that the number allowed to
be under the roof at any given hour of the day, or the number allowed to sleep
in the house? Define sleeping?
Do you remember sleeping on
holiday when you were young?
Me neither.
If they promise they didn’t
sleep is it OK to have double, or triple, the number approved for occupancy?
The
Holiday House shall not be occupied by more than eight (8) people at any time
excluding people that are members of the owner’s family.
Is this the killer clause?
The Walcliffe weasel has
crafted a phrase so impossible for the neighbours to ever argue with that it
offers complete immunity from complaints of overcrowding.
How can a neighbour know all
the members of the owner’s family?
A
Manager or a contactable employee of the manager that permanently resides no
greater than a 1 hour drive from the site shall be nominated for the holiday
house and retained at all times during the use of the site as a Holiday House.
So if there is loud music at
10.01pm the neighbour will potentially have to wait until 11pm for any respite.
The 24
hour contact details of the manager of the Holiday House shall be visible on
the property from the nearest street frontage and maintained to the
satisfaction of the Shire.
Does anyone check compliance
with this? We need rangers to check
compliance with fire break requirements, does the shire now need more rangers
to be employed to check this signage is present at all times? Is the charge for checking
compliance fully covered by the property owner?
All
vehicles & boats connected with the premises shall be parked within
the boundaries of the property.
What does this mean?
Does it mean vehicles belonging
to the short term visitors, or visitors who are visiting the visitors?
If the holiday visitors just
block a drive for a short time? Who really cares?
It’s only the neighbour who
is being inconvenienced,
An
Emergency Response Plan and Fire Management Plan shall be displayed in a
conspicuous location within the development at all times.
And for which languages do these need to offer
translations?
Amplified
music to only be played outside of the approved dwelling between the hours of
10am and 10pm.
How about non-amplified, loud drunken singing,
drumming OK? So
that’s OK then.
Just
another 12 months of potential hell for one of our residents? Is
the shire keeping data on this?
Maybe
every house is now being used this way and so it no longer represents a problem?
Over time this will happen. Eventually those who wanted a quiet life will be
driven elsewhere. Except for a few old people that I know in Augusta, and they
won’t be around for many more years.
....Please note that in the event that any substantiated complaints are received
again in relation to the holiday house use on the site, the Shire is unlikely to support any further renewal
applications.
Weasel words that spell misery
for a permanent resident who has to provide substantiated
evidence to support their complaints, and then they have no certainty that
the shire will withdraw the approval.
Are there any figures for how
may approvals have been revoked?
b. As
this approval has been limited to 12 months. A new planning application seeking
such approval must be submitted 90 days before the expiry of the twelve (21)
month period, along with the appropriate planning fee. (P)
From reading the planning fee
page it appears that the fee is $295, which would not be anywhere near the
actual cost of planning staff and administration support for this application.
Bearing in mind that the planning officer is interviewing people, analysing
submissions, corresponding with owner about issues, recording responses and
preparing a report, etc.
c. Noise
emissions resulting from development/use of premises for the approved purpose
shall not exceed the assigned levels in the Environmental Protection (Noise)
Regulations 1997, and shall not unreasonably
interfere with the health, welfare, convenience, comfort or amenity of an
occupier of any other premises. (H)
How does anyone assess this, “unreasonable interference with health,
welfare, convenience, comfort, amenity etc”, is the shire employing a specialist, maybe a psychologist, a medical doctor?
These are weasel words again, any
interference is unreasonable, and the neighbours could have their health seriously impaired. Depression is increasing throughout WA. Stress is a killer. Sleep is essential to our well-being.
d. In
relation to condition 4, if at any time there is not an appointed manager or a
contactable employee of the manager for the site, the Shire may cease the operation of the
approved use until such time as a manager is appointed. (P)
No imperative again, no doubt
the neighbours would have to prove the manager had failed to attend, hardly
worth it as any suspension of approval is only going to be for the duration of
the time the manager is not available.
So when you see the shire advertisement
for the new position of bed ranger, to police the holiday home requirements,
you’ll understand that it’s just another externality of the wonderful growth in
tourism we are experiencing here.
No comments:
Post a Comment