“The devil’s in the detail”: City of Sydney calls for feedback on late night plan as deadline looms

The City of Sydney are urging music fans, venues and businesses to provide feedback for its late-night premises draft development control plan before the deadline on February 8.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore announced the bold new plan to jump-start Sydney’s nightlife and the economy last November.

It was some of the biggest changes to red tape and city planning in a decade.

Proposals included:

– extending 24-hour trading across the entire city centre (CBD)

– allowing shops, businesses and low-impact food and drink venues on high streets to trade until 2am

-new late-night trading areas in some of the city’s fastest-growing neighbourhoods, such as Barangaroo, Green Square, Danks Street in Waterloo and around the East Village shopping centre in Zetland

– a new cultural precinct in an industrial part of Alexandria where there would be no venue noise problems and which has extended public transport coming

– a bonus hour of trading for venues that hold performances and creative events in late-night trading areas.

The lord mayor said 10,000 Sydneysiders had provided feedback, “and the overwhelming majority said they want Sydney to have a diverse and exciting night-time economy with events and activities for people of all ages and interests.”

Now with a week to go. Crs Jess Scully and Jess Miller are calling on the community to provide specific details.

Miller: “Everybody agrees we need more nightlife, more vitality, but what does it actually mean for your favourite venue, your street, where you live, where you hang out?

“We know the devil is in the detail.”

Scully wants to hear more from venues on, say, whether they’d take up on the extra trading hour, and from residents on whether their ‘hoods are appropriate for 24-hour action, and if Alexandria is the right spot for a new cultural precinct, and if they’d bother to go out in a 24-hour activity zone.