Kimberley planning scheme amendment recasts short-term rental accommodation rules

The Minister for Planning has approved Amendment No. 2 to the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley Local Planning Scheme No. 9, replacing the “holiday accommodation”, “bed and breakfast” and “motel” land uses with new “tourist and visitor accommodation”, “hosted short-term rental accommodation” and “unhosted short-term rental accommodation” categories. The approval was granted on 7 July 2026 and notified for public information under section 87 of the Planning and Development Act 2005. It appears in the Western Australian Government Gazette No. 122 of 25 September 2026, Planning section, under file TPS/3291.

The notice is signed by D. Menzel, President, and V. Lawrence, Chief Executive Officer, of the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley, the local government covering Kununurra and the East Kimberley. The amendment rewrites the scheme’s land-use vocabulary in Part 6 Division 1 Clause 37 and Division 2 Clause 38, then reworks the Part 3 Table 4 zoning table and the Schedule 1 additional uses attached to specific Kununurra lots.

Six legacy land-use terms are deleted outright: bed and breakfast, holiday accommodation, holiday house, motel, serviced apartment and tourist development. The general definition of “short-term accommodation” is also removed, while the definitions of cabin, chalet and road house are amended to cap guest stays at a total of three months in any 12-month period.

New categories define who hosts and how many guests

• Tourist and visitor accommodation: a building or complex wholly managed by a single person or body, commercially let with no guest accommodated for more than three months in any 12-month period; a single building must contain more than one separate accommodation unit or be capable of accommodating more than 12 people per night.
• Hosted short-term rental accommodation: short-term rental where the owner, occupier or a resident agent lives at the same dwelling, or at the ancillary dwelling on the same lot, during the arrangement.
• Unhosted short-term rental accommodation: short-term rental that is not hosted and accommodates a maximum of 12 people per night.
• Short-term rental arrangement: occupation of a dwelling, or part of one, for periods not exceeding a total of three months in any 12-month period.
• Excluded from the tourist and visitor category: aged care facilities, caravan parks, lodging-houses, park home parks, retirement villages, road houses and workforce accommodation.

Zoning table sets where each use is allowed

The amendment inserts the new uses into Table 4, the zoning table, using the scheme’s permissibility codes “P”, “A” and “X”.

• Hosted short-term rental accommodation is designated “P” in the Residential, Rural Townsite, Commercial, Mixed Use, Tourism, Agriculture-State of Regional Significance, Local Horticulture, Rural, Rural Residential and Rural Smallholdings zones, and “X” in all other zones.
• Unhosted short-term rental accommodation is “P” in Tourism, “A” in Residential, Rural Townsite, Commercial, Mixed Use, Rural, Rural Residential and Rural Smallholdings, and “X” in all other zones.
• Tourist and visitor accommodation follows the same pattern: “P” in Tourism, “A” in the residential, commercial, mixed use and rural zones, and “X” in all other zones.
• All references to bed and breakfast, holiday accommodation, holiday house, motel, serviced apartment and tourist development are deleted from Table 4.

Kununurra lots and development standards updated

• Lot 2 Old Darwin Road, Lot 649 Research Station Road, Lot 530 River Farm Road and Lot 266 Packsaddle Road, all in Kununurra, move from “holiday accommodation” to “tourist and visitor accommodation (Chalet)”.
• Lot 207 River Farm Road and Lot 511 River Farm Road move from “bed and breakfast” to “hosted short-term rental accommodation”.
• In Table 9, the Development Standards Table, “Bed and Breakfast” is replaced by “Hosted Short-Term Accommodation” and “Tourist Accommodation” by “Tourist and Visitor Accommodation”; the reference to “Motel” is deleted.
• Point 1 is deleted from the Tourism zone in Schedule 3, Table 10, with the remaining provisions renumbered.

For owners, hosts and tourism operators in Kununurra and the wider East Kimberley, the amendment settles which short-stay models can operate by right, which require an application and which are excluded, and it ties short-term letting to a three-month annual ceiling. The Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley is named as the responsible local government, and the scheme now carries a single, consolidated set of accommodation definitions in place of six separate legacy uses.

Source: Western Australian Government Gazette, No. 122, 25 September 2026, Planning, p. 2065 (official reference: PL401).