{"id":576544,"date":"2026-08-22T04:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T04:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/576544\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T04:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T04:38:10","slug":"christchurch-city-councillor-calls-for-bed-register-to-crack-down-on-unapproved-airbnbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/576544\/","title":{"rendered":"Christchurch city councillor calls for bed register to crack down on unapproved Airbnbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Christchurch city councillor is calling for a bed register to crack down on units being used for short-stay accommodation without permission.<\/p>\n

His comments come after the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment backed a ruling<\/a> that multi-unit or apartment owners must ask permission before using residential properties as a holiday or short-term rental.<\/p>\n

The council had sought a determination from the ministry because it felt the owners of a unit had changed its consented use as a household unit by making it available for short-term accommodation.<\/p>\n

Councillor Nathaniel Hertz Jardine said the move added more weight to the council’s argument that more regulation of short-stay accommodation was needed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The underlying issue is that we decide democratically as a city which areas of our city should be used for long-term residents, which are the residentially-zoned areas, and which ones should be used for tourist accommodation, which is commercial zones.<\/p>\n

“What Airbnb operators do is they use areas that should be for long-term residents, and they basically convert them into motels and hotels, and this ruling just highlights that you shouldn’t be doing that,” he told RNZ.<\/p>\n

It reinforced the need for a national bed register, he said.<\/p>\n

“Even with this ruling, councils are still going to find it very hard to locate and identify those properties that are being incorrectly used with short-stay accommodation. So we still really need central government to help us with a register so we can get that information directly from platforms like Airbnb.”<\/p>\n

Hotel and motel operators had raised concerns about short-stay accommodation not adhering to rules around accessibility and fire safety. A bed register would make tracking properties and whether they were following the rules easier too, Hertz Jardine said.<\/p>\n

\"Townhouses<\/p>\n

Christchurch has seen a boom in townhouses in the central city.<\/p>\n

Frank Films<\/p>\n

The council would wait for appeals over the ruling to be heard before moving forward, he said, so they would have certainty it reflected the new status quo.<\/p>\n

“Then we’re going to have to look really seriously about how that affects our responsibilities as a council about enforcing these safety standards across all of the Airbnb units in the city.<\/p>\n

“Regardless of which way that ruling goes, we still need help from central government for a bed register, for a bed tax, and for better zoning rules so we can have real control over how our city is growing.”<\/p>\n

Short-stay accommodation operators were taking on a lot of risk, he added.<\/p>\n

“If you haven’t gotten a resource consent from your council, you’re in a grey area and you’re taking on a lot of financial risk. And we, as a council, we’re not responsible for that risk.<\/p>\n

“It could be that in a couple of years from now, it’s going to be very hard for you to be operating that Airbnb unit.<\/p>\n

“You might want to consider getting a long-term tenant. You might want to consider selling the property. You might want to consider just doing something different.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Christchurch city councillor is calling for a bed register to crack down on units being used for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569732,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[138,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-576544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}