Beloved Melbourne music venue Howler has been saved from developers

One of Melbourne’s best live music venues, Howler has been spared from the dreaded attack of the apartment block after local council knocked back a proposal that was set to spring up right next door.

The apartment blocks would have placed the venue at risk of all sorts of noise complaints, leaving the venue and its punters seriously concerned about its future when the development was first proposed last year.

Now, as The Music reports, a meeting of the Moreland City Council held last night was handed 426 written objections to the proposal, and also heard speeches given by members of Music Victoria and venue owner Brendan Brogan.

On the weight of this, the council has decided to back the music venue and its local scene, and walk back their earlier recommendation that the development go ahead, on the basis that the venue’s design didn’t take into account the Agent Of Change principle, which places the onus on a building’s designers to mitigate noise from existing venues, rather than the venue owners.

“The councillors rightly believed that 74 apartments next to a live music venue would be problematic,” Brogan tells The Music.

“They saw that the design didn’t take into account the Agent Of Change principle, and that more design would be needed to enable residents and Howler to co-exist.

“It is a massive win for the music industry. It means music venues are genuinely starting to feel the protection of the Agent Of Change law.”

As The Music notes, the developers still have the option to take the matter to VCAT, but it would seem that a redesign would be in order to comply with the newly-implemented law.

For his part, Brogan seemed thrilled with the outcome, and hopeful for what it means for the future of the venue, and the music community as a whole.

“It was also great to see the genuine passion that the councillors had for the issue,” Brogan continued. “They saw that Moreland needed development, but they also saw that live music formed a key part of why people would live in Brunswick.

“People are finally starting to see that more apartments does not necessarily mean a better community.”