Christchurch City Council has voted to send a major rewrite of the city’s central city noise rules out for public consultation, after live music venue owners warned the scaled back map left key venues exposed to complaints.

The Policy and Planning Committee approved the plan change with extension of the category 1 and 2 areas where higher limits for noise are permitted, based on insulation required of housing and other sensitive activities in these areas.

The council will now seek public feedback on the changes which aim to better manage noise in the central city, particularly when it comes to live music, entertainment activities, and areas where housing and business mix.

After consultation, the changes will be considered by a Hearings Panel.

The decision on Plan Change 21 sets up a hearings process expected to take six to 12 months before final approval.

Earlier in the meeting, Darkroom co owner Feather Shaw urged councillors to expand the proposed Category 1 noise zone before the plan went out for consultation.

Shaw said the music industry backed the overall intent of the plan, which received 87 percent support from the 1,400 odd submitters in last year’s survey, but two sections of the central city needed to be put back into Category 1.

“It came as a huge surprise and a blow to the music community to see that our industry peers had the likes of Hide and a Rolling Stone have not been included in category one,” Shaw said.

She said the scaled back map ended Category 1 immediately next door to Darkroom, with a small section between the venue and Space Academy falling into Category 2.

That section, she said, had already been sold to residential developers.

“We are worried new residents immediately outside of category one may understandably expect lower noise conditions, even though we are literally next door and have been for 15 years,” Shaw said.

“If boundaries are placed uncomfortably close, then we risk more of the same tensions over noise that this plan was set up to try and avoid in the first place.”

Shaw said the experience of Dux Central, which operates under rules equivalent to the proposed Category 2 zone, showed that level of protection was not enough.

She called for two specific changes.

The first was a Category 1 zone covering the cluster of nightlife venues along St Asaph Street around Colombo Street, including Rolling Stone and Hide.

The second was the remaining 200 metres between Darkroom and the intersection of Fitzgerald Avenue, covering venues including the former 12 Bar and Scoundrel.

Shaw pointed to a council webinar last year which explained background noise in cities never fell below 50dB and often reached 60dB, even in the middle of the night.

She said Christchurch was investing heavily in cultural infrastructure, including galleries, libraries, theatres, dance studios and a new stadium that hosts its first major event in days, but the city also needed to protect grassroots venues.

“Why celebrate a brand new stadium about to host its first major concert when we watch more and more of our industry peers at the grassroots level go out of business every year?” Shaw said.

“If these precious spaces aren’t protected and supported, then where do the stadium superstars of tomorrow even get their start?”

Shaw said Darkroom and other venues had first approached the council in 2022 to flag potential noise tensions before new townhouses next to a cluster of beloved venues had even broken ground.

“As we rightly predicted, these now completed residential developments have indeed led to noise complaints against our established venues,” she said.

She said music practitioners were leaving Christchurch in droves for Wellington, Auckland and Melbourne.

“Culture and community build with time, because people stay put and do the mahi to build it,” Shaw said.

The plan change now goes out for public submissions before heading to a formal hearings process.