Can I short-term rent in Blue Mountains City Council?

The Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure's STRA FAQ (footer-dated "Updated May 2024"; hosted at a site path suggesting a September 2024 upload, the record's earlier citation of "dated September 2024" was imprecise and has been corrected here) explicitly lists "Blue Mountains" among the Greater Sydney region LGAs where non-hosted STRA under the exempt-development pathway is restricted to a maximum of 180 days per 365-day annual registration period. This was verified by direct retrieval and full-text read of the PDF, which lists Blue Mountains alphabetically alongside Bayside, Blacktown, Burwood, Camden, Campbelltown, Canterbury-Bankstown, City of Canada Bay, City of Parramatta, City of Ryde, City of Sydney, Cumberland, Fairfield, Georges River, Hawkesbury, Hornsby, Hunters Hill, Inner West, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove, Liverpool, Mosman, North Sydney, Northern Beaches, Penrith, Randwick, Strathfield, Sutherland, The Hills, Waverley, Willoughby, Wollondilly and Woollahra. Hosted STRA carries no day limit (365 days/year) anywhere in the LGA, also confirmed verbatim in the same document ("Hosted STRA is not restricted by any day limits and can be carried out 365 days per year"). This places Blue Mountains on the same 180-night threshold as inner and middle-ring Sydney councils, it is not subject to a distinct, lower, LGA-specific cap the way Byron Shire (60 days) is.

Exceptions: The 180-day limit applies to the exempt-development pathway specifically; it does not apply to hosted STRA, and does not itself restrict STRA carried out under a development consent/DA (which can have its own bespoke conditions). Bookings of 21+ consecutive days are also excluded from the 180-day count.

Clause 6.29 of the Blue Mountains Local Environmental Plan 2015 is shown as "(Repealed)" in the in-force consolidation on the NSW legislation website's own table of contents (verified directly by loading the in-force HTML view of the Plan on 24 July 2026 and confirming the clause list reads "6.28 Rural and nature-based tourist facilities / 6.29 (Repealed) / 6.30 Horticulture in Zone C3"). There is no other bespoke Blue Mountains LEP clause dealing specifically with short-term rental accommodation. STRA use of a dwelling in the LGA therefore runs entirely on the statewide framework: the exempt-development pathway under the State Environmental Planning Policy (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008 / Housing SEPP 2021 where criteria are met, or a Complying Development Certificate / standard development application assessed under ordinary LEP 2015 zoning and development-standard provisions where they are not (e.g. where bushfire, environmental or heritage exclusions apply). Some low-quality secondary sources online (not primary, not cited here) claim clause 6.29 currently authorises STRA in dwelling houses, that claim is out of date/incorrect.

Exceptions: Exact date of the clause 6.29 repeal was not confirmable within this session's source set, the LEP consolidation only shows current status, not a per-clause amendment history table.

BMCC's official development guidance states verbatim: "If you are looking to apply for a Complying Development Certificate under NSW State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) (Exempt and Complying Development Codes) 2008, you need to obtain a BAL certificate from an accredited bushfire consultant or Council." This was confirmed by direct retrieval of the live page. Development applications on bushfire prone land must separately include a Bush Fire Assessment Report complying with the NSW RFS's "Planning for Bushfire Protection 2019" (also stated on the same page). Because the Blue Mountains LGA has extensive certified bushfire-prone land (the city is bordered by, and partly surrounded by, Blue Mountains National Park), hosts whose STRA dwelling doesn't qualify for the simpler exempt-development pathway are materially more likely than in non-bushfire LGAs to be routed into this BAL/CDC (or full DA) process before they can legally operate.

Exceptions: Only triggered where the specific site is on Council's certified Bush Fire Prone Land map and the STRA use requires a CDC or DA rather than qualifying for exempt development; BAL rating is site- and building-specific, not suburb-wide.

In a media statement dated 22 August 2022 (confirmed on the live page, which carries that exact publication date), Council said: "Council is not legally able to regulate short term rental accommodation," while noting that, per figures it cited, around 1,165 of the LGA's approximately 4,700 rental properties (roughly 20%, matching the page's own "nearly 20 per cent" framing) were short-term rentals. Council's stated response was to encourage owners to voluntarily convert holiday lets to long-term rentals to ease the local housing shortage, it did not (and per this statement, legally could not) introduce a local STRA cap, licence quota or ban of its own. This confirms that, unlike planning matters (zoning, DA/CDC, bushfire assessment), any future day-limit or cap change for Blue Mountains would have to come from the NSW state government's STRA policy, not from Council.