STACY SQUIRES/STUFF

Christchurch City Council staff are considering how to apply the business rate to properties used for short-term guest accommodation.

The city council is mulling new rates rules for Christchurch properties offering short-term accommodation, as the popularity of Airbnb skyrockets.

A new report shows council staff are aware of an "unequal playing field" between formal and informal accommodation providers.

The council charges businesses a rate differential of "plus 66 per cent on the general rate". No properties providing "informal short-term guest accommodation" are known to be paying business rates. 

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Airbnb's popularity has skyrocketed in Christchurch.

The council will review how it rates properties used for short-term stays, with staff currently working out possible ways to apply a business rate to such dwellings. 

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The owner of Addington's Jailhouse Accommodation, Grant Parrett, said "as a commercial operator you want a level playing field".

"I don't think anyone begrudges Mum and Dad whose kids have moved out and you've got a spare room [or] the staying on site and the renting it out to a tourist," he said.

"What I think people do want is a level playing field in terms of people that are doing this as a business.

"For example, someone buying an apartment for the sole propose of renting it out as tourist accommodation. To me that's a sort of business and so therefore from a rates perspective I think it should be rated as such."

Formal accommodation providers had to meet other requirements too, Parrett sad.

"There's kind of a health and safety of visitors aspect, which is obviously the commercial operators have to meet fire and egress," he said.

"We have already had one fire ... in [an] Airbnb and some of the Airbnbs are in old villas and, to be honest, if you've got multiple people staying in an old villa I think your risk of having a fire is increased."

His comment referred to an incident last September when six members of a Malaysian family of 10 were taken to hospital after fire broke out in a three-storey Airbnb​ rental in Sumner.

The council report reveals accommodation sector representatives have asked city councillors what the rules are for using residential properties to host short-term guests.

"The basis for these questions is a concern that the formal accommodation sector is required to comply with district plan rules, resource consent conditions and Building Act requirements, and pay business rates," the report reads.

Also revealed is the dramatic increase in the popularity of services such as Airbnb and Book-a-Bach.

"The number of rooms in owner-occupied homes listed rose from 58 in June 2016 to 1434 in December 2017. By 8 February 2018 this had further risen to 2501 Christchurch listings on Airbnb," the report said.

But some using Airbnb, like Christchurch man Tom Rennie, were not concerned by possible rating changes.

"It probably wouldn't deter us from doing it, because we do it anyway it's not a huge burden on us," he said.

"We're not really doing it to make a huge amount of money ... it's just a nice thing to do and just to get a bit of income. We pay our taxes and things on it, I don't think a lot of people would.

"It's quite hard to actually work out what the actual Airbnb costs you to run, because of course you have power, hot water all those things, but ... when you're actually still living in the house yourself it's hard to separate those costs."

 - Stuff