Upper Yarra
Tuesday, 2 July, 2024
What’s in the 2024/25 Council Budget
Wandin Bakery takes top gong
Local boxing legend a champion
See Real Estate liftout inside
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A Star News Group Publication
PR OP ER TY
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Olympic fever lands By Callum Ludwig The mighty athletes of Yarra Junction Primary School are geared up for the start of the Olympics, even holding their own event on Thursday 27 June. With students proudly competing under their new countries, including everywhere from ‘New Japanland’ to ‘Franceldonia’ or to the sweeter shores of ‘Marshmellow Land’ and ‘Donutland’, the day was filled with the Olympic spirit. PE teacher Brooke Nisi said there were elements of all four specialist subjects and the Olympic Games tying into the big event. “We were really strong on student voice and what they wanted out of today in place of the usual Grade 3 to 6 athletics carnival, just to give it a bit of a twist and a bit of fun,” she said. Turn to page 15 for more
Grade 1/2 at the volleyball event. 416012
Picture: STEWART CHAMBERS
Solution needed A new report from the Grounded Community Land Trust (CLT) advocacy group has identified Warburton as a community that has been hit hard by the rise of short-term rentals. The author of the ‘Airbnb: from a housing problem to solution’ report is the founder and Director of Grounded Karl Fitzgerald. Mr Fitzgerald said the main finding of the report was that short-term rentals (STRs) had grown quicker than the total housing supply.
“In Warburton, according to the Census and due to the risk of fire, the ability to create new supply is severely curtailed and the Census showed that only one new home had been built each year over a decade,” he said. “There’s barely any new supply, but here is Airbnb growing at a rapid rate of knots and in Warburton, it was about comparing Airbnb’s and short-term rentals to the supply of longterm rentals and there was a 125 per cent growth in short-term rentals compared to long-term rentals and the growth has basically
come out of nowhere over the last decade.” The report investigated Hepburn Shire, Mornington Peninsula, Byron Bay, Fremantle, Victor Harbor, Hobart, Noosa Heads, Coolum Beach, Port Douglas, the Whitsundays, Warburton and Apollo Bay, utilising data from the 2021 Census and AirDNA, an analytics platform which tracks performance and market data from short-term rental sites like Airbnb. The data on Warburton in the report finds that there are 136 active STRs, 25.5 per cent
more than the number of long-term rentals with a 43 per cent occupancy rate and which 93 per cent are whole home listings (rather than a room). Warburton was an outlier even amongst others studied regarding the percentage of new supply, with the average of only one new home per annum and the influx of STRs meaning there is 970.4 per cent more STRs in Warburton than new homes and a 550 per cent decrease in the total rental supply as a percentage of total supply. Full story page 3
12699072-MS27-24
By Callum Ludwig
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