A national bed register would force short-term accommodation providers to share their data and in turn have to pay the correct council fees and charges.
Such a scheme was given full backing from the Christchurch City Council last week and Cr Nathanial Herz Jardine is now looking at getting councils such as the Queenstown-Lakes and Mackenzie District Councils involved.
Cr Herz Jardine said all the council was asking for was something that was common in Europe and was based around fairness and reviving some communities.
Any council around the country could get involved, he said.
‘‘The problem at the moment is that we just don’t have the data. So what they do in the EU is that the platforms like Airbnb, they’re required to share all of their information with local authorities.
‘‘Like in Christchurch, the first thing is just charging business rates so that those fulltime unhosted, short-stay accommodation places are just paying what they should.’’
Short-term accommodation providers should be paying their share in economic development, event promotions and commercial rates.
Central Christchurch had hurt worse than other urban areas in the country as it was being rebuilt at the same time the short-term accommodation boom started sweeping the country, he said.
‘‘Almost all the new stuff is just going straight on to a short-stay. Our own figures say we’ve got 484 new places and only 50 new residents.
‘‘So that kind of paints a picture of the problem. So one new resident for every nine homes being built in the inner city. That’s how bad the problem is. And they’re just all sitting there, just mostly empty.’’
He was talking to the Otago Daily Times from near the new roofed stadium in Christchurch and said he could not see a single sign of life in any of the units.
‘‘You can tell by all the lockboxes which are there. Everywhere in this area is being built, which is awesome. The problem is there’s just no families living in it.’’
Visitors wanted to be near the stadium and other attractions but those attractions were provided because of the economic development and investment that ratepayers put into the city.
‘‘But all [short-term accommodation providers] are doing is they’re basically just dodging their taxes and taking all of the value that we invested in the city over the last 15 years.’’
The idea of a register was not new, but with councils behind him and it being election year, he hoped it would happen sooner rather than later.
Mackenzie District Mayor Scott Aronsen was supportive of getting a register as it was about fairness and paying a share.
‘‘We’re not against short-term accommodation but when take a bit of a deep dive into them, half of them aren’t paying the appropriate rate and we have a targeted tourism rate which should be standard across the board,’’ he said.
Many houses were being converted into multi-units, especially in Tekapo, and they were not compliant with the building code.
‘‘The reality is, when you’ve got a large amount of commercial operations in the district that are paying the appropriate rate and they come to you and say, ‘hey, this guy down the street, he’s got six units in his house and he’s not paying the appropriate rate’, well, that’s not on.’’
The Mackenzie district at any one time had up to 900 short-term accommodation units up for rent, in a district with a permanent population of just 5500.
In Queenstown-Lakes, the council had different rates for short-term accommodation depending on the number of nights stayed.
In 2017, the council proposed much more stringent regulations in its annual plan, but had to make a number of concessions after Airbnb took the local authority to court.
