‘Revs Express’ tram push as live-music venues to be shielded from noise complaints

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Pubs, clubs and live-music venues in Fitzroy, Richmond and Collingwood will soon be protected from noise complaints, as Yarra Council moves to insert five “live-music precincts” into planning laws that will require new apartment buildings to pay for soundproofing.

The council is also embarking on a push for an extended tram line to give nighttime revellers easy transport between Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and Chapel Street in Prahran.

The new planning rules create Live-Music Precincts across five key corridors – including Johnston Street and Brunswick Street – to mandate soundproofing in new residential developments, regardless of whether a music venue exists nearby.

The Tote owner Shane Hilton welcomes the new live music laws but says they need to have real teeth.

The council vote next week follows the high-profile case of Fitzroy’s The Night Cat, where a developer attempted to use planning law to force the decades-old venue to close before the apartment building was even built because of noise complaints.

While existing “agent of change” planning rules already require developers building apartments near a live-music venue to soundproof their buildings, the council is proposing new rules that go further to help venues and potential future music premises avoid conflicts in the first place.

Rather than a case-by-case basis, the new rules will apply this soundproofing requirement across the entire map of the new live-music areas, which include a 50-metre buffer zone to any existing live-music venue. The changes would also officially make live music a “priority use” in the planning rules, giving venues much clearer support if challenged in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

However, the lobby group for developers, the Property Council of Australia, complained the new rule could drive up the cost of new inner-city infill builds.

“While we support sensible measures to manage amenity, additional local-level requirements that go beyond state standards risk adding cost, complexity and further undermine the feasibility of new homes in these precincts,” Property Council Victorian executive director Cath Evans said.

But Yarra Mayor Stephen Jolly wasn’t buying it. “Get the violin strings out,” he said.

“The people who will want to live in the inner city in an apartment next to a nightclub, they won’t mind paying a little bit over the odds [for soundproofing].”

More widely, Jolly said the new planning changes would signal to developers and new residents that the council would always prioritise its music venues.

“You’re coming in to a noisy, live-music area – the most cosmopolitan sort of dynamic part of Melbourne,” he said. “So if somebody wants to downsize for a quiet retirement, nothing wrong with that – but go to Camberwell. Whack on your back episodes of Dad’s Army and knock yourself out.

“But if you move into the inner city, we’re full of live-music venues. They’re the lifeblood and the backbone of a key part of our local economy.”

Night Cat owner Justin Stanford welcomed the move. “I think it’s terrific to see politicians listening,” he said. “One of the reasons I made a public campaign around [The Night Cat] was not only to raise awareness of the case but for the whole sector – we’re all getting squeezed out.”

The Age has previously detailed how Melbourne’s live-music venues are under increasing pressure from rising rents, higher operating costs and patrons with less cash to spend. Many are struggling to obtain public liability insurance, with those able to secure insurance copping premium increases of up to 800 per cent.

City of Yarra has 77 small-to-medium live-music venues within its 19.5 square kilometres.

Shane Hilton, co-owner of Collingwood’s iconic The Tote Hotel which is within one of the proposed precincts, also welcomed the push.

He said it would be good to get formal recognition that live-music venues are a priority in their areas, and a reminder to developers and governments that these long-standing venues need protection, but he was concerned the amendment might only be a “paper tiger”. “Hopefully, the state government will take that and turn it around and give it some teeth,” he said.

Justin Stanford at the Night Cat in Fitzroy.

Music Victoria CEO Fiona Duncan said the council’s local work was essential because the Victorian Labor Party’s 2022 election commitment to create a stronger cultural precinct planning overlay has not yet been realised.

“Yarra’s current work provides important context for that broader policy conversation,” Duncan said, adding that the City of Port Phillip’s own precincts were submitted more than 20 months ago but remain unapproved by the planning minister.

A spokesperson for Minister for Planning Sonya Kilkenny said the state was “developing new planning rules to protect live-music precincts and keep venues open”, which would be finalised next year.

‘Revs Express’ Brunswick-Prahran tram line push

The council is also embarking on a push for an extended tram line to give nighttime revellers easy transport between Brunswick Street in Fitzroy and Chapel Street in Prahran.

Jolly confirmed the council would also vote to request the state to explore extending the 78 tram route (Balaclava – Prahran/South Yarra – Richmond) along Victoria Street to the Fitzroy interchange and have it turn into Brunswick Street.

The motion argues this new line would create a direct north-south shuttle link that avoids the CBD, with Jolly saying it would be a relatively tiny expense that would bring a “great bang for the buck” by linking the inner-north and inner-south nightlife areas.

Some punters have dubbed the proposal the “Revs Express”, after the famous Chapel Street nightclub Revolver.

Mike Callander, a resident DJ at Revolver Upstairs for 15 years, said the tram would be great for nightlife.

“I’d love to see a Revs Express bringing northside ravers to the home of late-night partying in Melbourne, and of course back home safely,” Callander said. “Good public transport options are vital to safe clubbing, and ridesharing services across the river can be prohibitively expensive. All aboard!”

The route travels through both Port Phillip and Stonnington councils, which are also expected to sign on to the advocacy push in the lead up to the state election.

Public Transport Users Association president Daniel Bowen supported the extension, which would involve inserting two small turn sections of tram tracks.

“Currently to do that trip would take three different trams and waiting 20 to 30 mins for a connection,” he said. “This would also boost capacity on the existing line up Brunswick Street.”

Kilkenny’s office said Yarra’s tram proposal would be “considered on its merits”.

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