Property Heavyweights Pull Plug on Noise Dispute

“I’d spend $10 million to defend it … that’s the other thing they should have thought about, I don’t care how much f**king money I spend on the Triffid.” Indeed, quite the war chest. And them’s fighting words from Queensland-based builder Scott Hutchinson about his live music venue side hustle. As the lyrics to the thunderous AC/DC anthem proclaim, rock ‘n’ roll ain’t noise pollution. Except, of course, when it is—or is likely to be. And that’s invariably when Hutchinson’s two worlds—live music and inner-city apartment development—collide. Such is the case with a $1.5-billion, triple-tower project given the green light for a 7440sq m site next to the Triffid, a popular 800-person venue with an outdoor beer garden at inner-city Newstead. The converted World War II era aircraft hangar is one of a handful of live entertainment assets owned by Hutchinson, a crusading Brisbane music venue landlord and chairman of Hutchinson Builders, one of Australia’s largest private construction firms. It is operated in partnership with former Powderfinger bassist and newly appointed Queensland Night-Life Economy commissioner John Collins. Together, they have filed an appeal in the Planning and Environment Court against the Brisbane City Council’s approval of Panettiere Developments’ mixed-use project dubbed Little Italy comprising 1001 apartments. ▲ The Triffid from the street and (at top) inside the venue that opened in Newstead in 2014. It is argued the proposed development was given the nod despite a “deficient” noise impact assessment. As a result, according to the documents, the proposal “does not provide adequate technical assessment nor design that will ensure the protection of the amenity of future residents from amplified music and in turn, achieve the outcome of the Fortitude Valley Neighbourhood Plan in protecting amplified music venues”. “We don’t want to stop the development going ahead,” Hutchinson tells The Urban Developer . “This isn’t a big ‘us versus them’ or ‘live music versus developers’ thing ... that’s bullshit. “All we’re wanting the developer to do next door is to make sure it’s all properly soundproofed so that we don’t have any chance of getting closed down. “Triffid is in a designated entertainment precinct but no matter how much protection that gives you the council will cave in if people ring up every night complaining and drive them crazy. So, you’ve got to get this stuff sorted out before it gets built. “And what we’re asking for is absolute chicken shit … basically it’s just a bit thicker glazing, a few extra millimeters. You’re talking a maximum $200,000 extra in a $1.5-billion development.” As it turns out, developer Max Panettiere is more than happy to oblige and the two parties are already negotiating a solution to resolve the matter. ▲ A render of the approved Little Italy precinct. Developer Max Panettiere agrees with Hutchinson that there’s no conflict over the approval. “We’re not going to war,” Panettiere says. “I’ve spoken to Scott. He doesn’t want to fight with us. We don’t want to fight with him. “He just wants a condition on some acoustic treatment of the units facing the Triffid so he doesn’t get noise complaints from residents. We don’t have a problem with that and we don’t want complaints either. “So we’ll agree on an acoustic solution and amend the DA. We’re happy to do it. There’s no issue … I mean, it didn’t have to go down this way but it’s totally going to be resolved.” By the same token, Hutchinson is somewhat baffled as to how the application slipped through the approval process without conditions to ensure sufficient acoustic treatment. “We lodged a submission but it still went through, so we had to appeal,” he says “I don’t know what they were thinking. “Some units don’t get built with acoustic treatment but if you face a music venue you probably should think about it.” On the positive side, Hutchinson says acoustic engineering and soundproofing technology has come a long way during the past couple of decades, enabling such resolutions to be achieved so that residential buildings can exist next to music venues. ▲ Scott Hutchinson outside the Fortitude Music Hall: Noise is no longer the greatest threat venues face. “It’s still a little bit of witchcraft but we’re a whole lot better at it than we used to be as an industry.” As a result, he says, noise is no longer the biggest threat to live music venues. It was Hutchinson’s quest to replace Brisbane’s demolished Festival Hall—his “temple” as he describes it—that led to him pumping $45 million into building the Fortitude Music Hall, which opened in Brunswick Street Mall in 2019. The venue has become a centrepiece for Fortitude Valley’s Special Entertainment Precinct (SEP), which was created by the Brisbane City Council in 2006 to “ensure the long-term future of the music-based entertainment industry in the Valley without exposing residents or businesses to unreasonable levels of amplified music noise”. Significantly, venues within the SEP boundaries are exempt from the amplified noise requirements of the state’s Liquor Act. Instead, noise is managed by the city under a local law. The SEP, notably, also requires new residential and accommodation developments to achieve minimum noise reduction requirements. In 2017, the SEP was extended to include the Triffid at Newstead to protect it from noise complaints. Hutchinson’s other venues in the precinct include The Outpost Bar, Sound Garden, Blute’s, Black Bear Lodge and the former Kickons Bar. ▲ Brisbane Festival Hall in November, 1975. The venue closed in 2003 and was demolished to make way for the Oaks Festival Towers. “People want to see the Valley remain the fantastic thing that it is,” the patron of Queensland’s peak music industry body QMusic says. “But the big problem for inner-city music venues is the value of the land that they sit upon. And for that reason, he says, not only are they hard to make stack up, they are hard to preserve “because somebody’s always trying to buy them to knock them down and build highrise residential”. “But there’s good people in Brisbane who own properties and care enough to see the town looked after,” he says. “And they're happy and willing to not maximise their profits to see these venues carry on and keep the music alive.” To name a few, he mentions brothers Steve and Dave Sleswick, who own The Tivoli, and Charlie and Arthur Apostolos, the landlords of the 1920s Shannon’s Building—the former home of The Zoo which shut its doors in July after 32 years but has reopened under a new management as the Crowbar. Meanwhile, a fiercely passionate Hutchinson vows he will make sure his seven properties “remain music venues forever”. “It’s a labor of love, and I don’t want that labor of love to be f**ked up.” To that end, he has told his family—in particular, his sons Terrence and Jack, who have skin in the property game—that he will not be leaving anything to chance after he has departed to the big mosh pit in the sky. “I’m going to tie it up so that they can’t convert them into units when I’m dead,” he says. “I've got a couple of lawyers working on it. “Terrence says to me, what about valuation status? No, f**k off. I don’t want them borrowing against these things ... they’re for Brisbane.” You are currently experiencing The Urban Developer Plus (TUD+), our premium membership for property professionals. Click here to learn more.

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