Hi all, I had a look through the GCCC City plan and yes, you do need a development permit to run an Airbnb on the Gold Coast. Brisbane is the same
It costs just over $8500 to submit a development approval to the council but before you do that, you will also need to hire a town planner to put together a report for you to support your application. It is the same type of application you would need to build an apartment building (Material Change of Use). This will most likely set you back a couple of thousand as well.
Depending on the zoning, the application costs may be different dependent on the city plan and Apartments in High density zones may be exempt (Not 100% sure on that though).
I rang the council to have a chat about it and they said that they don't actively check up on people and they rely on complaints from neighbours to investigate and that if an when they do, they would send a letter of some form that would either ask you to stop or ask you to apply for a permit.
They did not say anything about a fine but I imagine if you were to continue after they send that advice that they would most likely send you a fine.
There is something like 6-7000 Airbnb properties on the Gold Coast and i hihghly doubt that more than 5% of them have this permit so it is completely up to you if you go ahead with it or not.
Make sure your guests keep the noise to a minimum before and after a respectable hour and your neighbours shouldn't have much reason to complain.
I do remember a couple of local lawyers writing an article about this as well. I can't include links here so I won't but if you type into google "is Airbnb legal on the Gold Coast", it should show up.
