In June 2003, then Victorian Minister for Arts and Minister for Planning, Mary Delahunty, appointed the Live Music Taskforce.
It was chaired by Ms Elaine Carbines, Parliamentary Secretary for the Environment and Member for Geelong Province, and she delivered the Report and Recommendations document in December that year.
From the Report and Recommendations:
“Our Taskforce was established to examine the relationship between live music venues and residential amenity. Our membership represents live musicians, music and arts venues, planning, environment and licensing policy makers and regulators, Victoria Police, local government and the building and development industries. We have considered 224 public submissions. We asked selected submitters and stakeholders to present their views at workshops, representing the music industry, residential and regulatory interests. Workshops and Taskforce meetings sought broad agreement on issues and ways forward.”
The document includes the term ‘agent of change’ 12 times – here is one of them:
5.6 MANAGING URBAN CHANGE
Principle 5: The onus of responsibility should be on the agent of changeSettlement trends over recent years have seen new residential development concentrating in and around activity centres, bringing residents closer to established entertainment precincts and live music venues. Inner urban neighbourhoods are becoming more ‘mixed use’ in character. This tends to increase the basis for conflict about music noise. This settlement and land use trend is provided for in Government policy and is expected to continue.
For both venue operators and residents, recognition should be accorded to the expectations generated by existing land uses.
For the resident, this implies a continued protection of amenity in the event of a change in venue operation or the development of a new venue. For the venue operator, this implies that where a venue is currently compliant with relevant noise attenuation standards and its operation does not change, new residential or other noise sensitive development should not lead to new compliance costs.
The onus of responsibility for the cost of noise management (which may include attenuation measures) should fall upon the agent of change.
In all cases of land use change, anticipation of issues of noise detriment, and implementation of predicted solutions at the planning and design stage are preferable to the adoption of measures to resolve an actual noise disturbance.
The document
Find the document on the Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure website: Live Music Taskforce, Report and Recommendations
