John MacDonald: Christchurch's Airbnb scourge isn't going away

Author: John MacDonald,
Publish Date: Fri, 28 Aug 2026, 12:35pm

Follow the podcast on

The 24-unit Madras Street apartment block will be sold as a single lot, ruling out individual buyers. // Rorie McGregor

Anyone celebrating that ruling by MBIE last week about one apartment in central Christchurch not being suitable for Airbnb accommodation needs to put the bubbly back on the ice.

Because this Air BnB scourge in Christchurch isn’t going away anytime soon. With a block of 24 new apartments, on Madras Street in the East Frame area of central Christchurch, that was supposed to be used for residential housing, being sold to one Airbnb operator.

The sale hasn’t happened yet. But the crowd building the apartments, Fletcher Living, is looking for an investor to buy the three-storey block holus-bolus. The price for all 24 apartments is thought to be somewhere between $12 million and $15 million.

Which is a price bracket that would enable an investor from overseas to buy it.

What really sticks in my claw, is that this development is happening in what became known as the East Frame area after the earthquakes. Which was a key development designed to get more people living in the central city.

Not having a one-night holiday in the central city. Living in the central city.

The specific area where this development is happening is on land bought by the Crown after the quakes, on Madras Street, near the Margaret Mahy Playground.

A local lobby group isn’t happy that people won’t be able to buy the apartments to live in, saying it would be better than having them sitting empty most of the time.

Would it ever.

A nearby resident is saying today too that this bulk sale of these 24 apartments is “outrageous” and will only make the area feel more lonely for people, like her, who live in the area.

People who have been saying for some time now that they’re finding themselves living in ghost neighbourhoods, with all these Airbnbs around them.

In one new development, residents say about 80 percent of the places have become Airbnb-type properties.

At another one, on the corner of Kilmore and Manchester Streets, there are 25 new townhouses and the people living there reckon only four of them appear to be occupied by long-term residents.

Which has them feeling like they’re living in a “pretend neighbourhood”. And they’re not imagining it.

We found out recently that, in the last year, 484 new homes were built in the central city, but the number of people living permanently in the area in that same period has only increased by 50.

That’s less than 1 percent growth in the number of people living in the centre of town. Which isn’t going to improve with Fletcher Living now selling what is effectively going to be a 24-room virtual hotel.

Councillor Yani Johanson says: “How do you build communities when you’ve got so much short-stay accommodation?”

The answer to that is, you don’t.

LISTEN ABOVE