City of Sydney release plan for an open and creative night culture

City of Sydney have today released a discussion paper: An Open and Creative City: planning for culture and the night time economy, which details and proposes a long term vision and  strategies for Sydney’s night time economy and cultural life.

It forms a large part of the city’s Live Music and Performance Action Plan.

Sydney is a global city, yet we are hampered by small town restrictions. Hopefully this paper pushes progress a tiny bit further.

It proposes eight actions across three subject areas (as laid out by the City of Sydney):

1. Developing fairer methods of managing entertainment noise – among a range of other significant changes designed to make the way we regulate noise fairer, we are proposing to introduce ‘agent of change’ into our planning controls. Under this system, new residential developments near existing entertainment venues would need to be designed and built to manage the noise of the existing venue. Conversely, new entertainment venues would be required to protect existing residential properties from any noise it will make. This is a significant and much needed shift in how the City works regulates music venues in respect to sound.

2. Encouraging more small-scale cultural events and activities across the city – allowing cultural activities with minimal impacts, such as a shop hosting an intimate performances or a public talk, to take place without development consent.
3. Making it easier for small businesses to trade later – allowing shops and local businesses in areas with an established retail character to extend their trading hours, without new development consent, from 7am to 10pm, seven days per week.

As the council stresses: “These planning controls, once finalised and (hopefully) accepted by the NSW Government, are going to be in place for a long time – so it’s vitally important that we get everyone who has a stake in Sydney’s night time economy participating in the process.”

The proposals will be considered at the Council committee meeting, on Monday October 16.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.