City of Sydney to discuss agent of change as noise complaints increase

City of Sydney will discuss the introduction of the agent of change in May as noise complaints continue to rise as new apartments spring up.

Melbourne and Victoria were the first to introduce the principle in late 2014 – where residents moving into a neighbourhood where a music venue already exists cannot then complain about the noise – and proved it a success.

Perth is another city that is also looking at its adoption.

In recent times, some Sydney venues are battling complaints from new arrivals.

These have included King’s Cross Hotel in Potts Point having to temporarily closed its rooftop bar due to objections from people who moved into the Omnia apartment block which opened opposite in November 2018.

The Marlborough in Newtown is having discussions with a neighbour about noise from its beer garden.

Adopting the agent of change was one of the recommendations that the City received from its citizens in late 2018 when canvassing feedback for its Open and Creative City, planning for culture and the night-time economy discussion paper.

The City, revealing the feedback, recounted: “Strong support for a new approach to managing entertainment noise, based on the ‘agent of change’ principle, where new residential developments near existing entertainment venues would need to be designed and built to manage the noise of the existing venue.

“People said this approach would better balance the rights and responsibilities of both venues and residents.”

In a discussion on the noise issue in hospitality website The Shout, both the Australian Hotels Association NSW director of liquor and policing John Green and Justine Baker, CEO of the Solotel hospitality group which runs the Kings Cross Hotel, stressed they were waiting for the agent of change to come into law to cut down on aggravation.

“This is the first time in 10 years that the late-night DCP [Development Control Plans] process has been reviewed. It’s a really important piece of legislation for us,” said Baker.