Taking place last Saturday, the SLAM day helped promote the message that Australian culture and community benefits from a thriving live music scene, and arguably nowhere more-so than in Melbourne, which held the lion’s share of the 200+ gigs that were held nationwide in celebration of local venues and live music.
There’s a serious side to the issue too, as we explored in our opinion piece on the matter, with live institutions in Melbourne continue to experience pressure from local councils, noise complaints from crotchety neighbours, and legislation that prioritises encroaching residential development.
The perfect example being the recent news that the iconic Corner Hotel was under threat from residential development. A new 13-storey tower was proposed for a site just across from the Richmond live music venue, with developers submitting plans for an apartment complex that would service 43 tenants, as well as a basement cafe, located at 63-65 Swan Street, currently the site of a late-night pizza parlour with just a single laneway separating it from the Corner.
Under current Victoria planning laws, the development of the new apartment block would take precedence over the live music venue – regardless of its established history – when it came to noise complaints, potentially forcing the Corner into fronting the costs for fines, further soundproofing, or even amending their opening hours.
Following our report on the planned residential development, Tone Deaf received an anonymous tip-off from a live music supporter who lodged an official complaint with the Yarra City Council, who had hosted the submitted plans on their website. In response, they received a letter from Yarra Council confirming that the planning application had been refused (you can view a photo of the rejection letter below).
The ‘Refusal To Grant A Permit’ letter offers three main grounds on the refusal of the proposed 13-storey residential apartments at 63-65 Swans St. Namely that the “height, scale and massing of the development” would both “visually dominate the heritage place” and “result in unreasonable off-site amenity impacts on land to the north as a result of visual bulk and loss of privacy.” Also referencing Heritage and Urban Design guidelines and plans the proposed development failed to comply with.
It’s great news for the Corner Hotel, and the countless music fans that regularly attend its many, many gigs and concerts, but it remains a one-off case in a larger symptom of legislative red tape.
Music Victoria CEO Patrick Donovan, who hosted a live music forum as part of St. Kilda Festival addressing the troubled year of similar noise complaints and pressure on live music venues in the area, called the residential development proposal encroaching on the Corner “very worrying.”
Donovan stressed that laws needed to be amended quickly in order to protect established venues from noise complaints and the precedence taken by residential development. Telling the Melbourne Times Weekly at the time of the planned development that the Corner was “definitely under threat and the uncertainty is one of the most worrying things.”
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