The landmark Bill designed to protect East End live music venue and pub the Crown & Anchor from development passed the Lower House unamended on Wednesday night, despite the Opposition questioning the legislation’s potential effect on developers.

The Bill is now expected to be debated in the Upper House in September.

Under the Bill – an amendment of the Planning, Development and Infrastructure Act 2016 (PDI Act) – the Crown & Anchor will be protected from whole or partial demolition and must remain a pub and live music venue.

Further, the entire CBD will be designated a ‘live music venue area’, with the Minister able to grant special protections to specific venues inside the zone and forcing new residential developments within 60 metres of a boundary of a live music venue to include “noise attenuation measures”.

The amendment Bill was drafted after the state government and Singapore developer Wee Hur Holdings Ltd struck an unprecedented agreement earlier this month.

Wee Hur’s plans to gut the Grenfell St pub for a 19-storey student housing block sparked a community backlash, protests and debate about planning laws, cultural heritage and Adelaide’s status as a UNESCO City of Music, leading Premier Peter Malinauskas to intervene and strike a compromise deal which spared the hotel.

Introducing the resulting Bill last night, Planning Minister Nick Champion said the legislation had three purposes.

“It preserves a hotel so that generations to come will be able to use it as a place to congregate, it provides that the Minister can prescribe in a notice other live music venues so that residential development within 60 metres must be developed with noise attenuation measures, and it significantly increases the supply of student accommodation in the Adelaide CBD which will assist to alleviate the pressure on the private housing rental market by supporting housing diversity,” Champion said.

“The proposed Bill is a sign that the government is prepared to use innovative solutions to achieve outcomes that benefit both the live music scene and student accommodation industries, as well as a community more generally.”

Liberal MP Matt Cowdrey said the Opposition would be “in no way impeding passage of this Bill through the house”, but raised concerns about “exactly what the impacts will be for the building itself” and “the significant construction burden on future developments around the CBD”.

During a two-hour committee hearing, Champion was asked if he had prepared a list of CBD sites which would attract the protection of the Bill as ‘designated live music venues’.

Champion said he had not yet prepared such a list, but detailed the criteria by which he will determine what venues can receive protection of the Bill.

“What we are going to do when we consider whether we designate a venue on the PlanSA website, the Minister for Planning will have a regard for the following: the extent to which the venue is used as a live music venue, whether there is likely to be a residential development within 60 metres of the venue, any relevant zoning that applies to the venue in the planning and design code, whether the venue is a place of state or local heritage, the existing development approval and any relevant conditions attached to it, and any other approvals or licences,” he said.

“They’re the starting criteria. And what I would say is, I think that the designation of a ‘live music venue’ would have to pass an appropriately high threshold, because it does place costs on development around it.

“Planning laws and heritage laws shape a city, but they don’t create the life of a city. They guide it, they don’t create it.”

The entire CBD will be designated a ‘live music venue area’ under the new Bill.

Cowdrey then asked how many live music venues Champion expected to fulfil those criteria, whether the Minister was required to undertake consultation prior to officially declaring a live music venue, and whether the Minister was the sole decision maker.

Champion said he would be the sole decision maker when deciding on which venues are considered ‘live music venues’, but “I haven’t got a list of live music venues in the city” he could provide parliament last night.

“I’m going to take considered advice and consult with my department about what the appropriate way forward,” he said.

Cowdrey replied that the government had “not contemplated what impacts may possibly come”.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to those on this side of the House for the Government to be moving a Bill that is going to – as it has been admitted by the Minister – place considerable burden on those that wish to develop in the vicinity of these designated live music venues,” he said.

Save the Cranker supporters with Adelaide MP Lucy Hood and a copy of the Bill at Parliament on Wednesday night. Photo supplied.

Property Council raises ‘significant concerns’ with Bill

Speaking to InDaily on Thursday after the Bill passed the Lower House, Property Council of Australia SA executive director Bruce Djite expressed concerns about the legislation.

“If the Bill intends on capturing all pubs and live music venues within the entire ‘designated live music venue area’ then we would have significant concerns,” Djite said.

“The Property Council strongly believes that any legislation should be limited to apply to only a small list or a handful of live music venues within the CBD.

“Legislation that is rushed or policy on the run must always be met with extreme caution.”

Djite said the biggest impact of the Bill would be on residential property developers, who he said might abandon the Adelaide CBD as a result of the legislation.

“It is important to get this Bill right to mitigate the risk of cost escalation and its potential to turn residential property developers away from Adelaide’s CBD at a time when SA is already struggling to bring new housing stock to the market,” he said.

“The development industry is determined to continue working with government and the community to continue building vibrant and safe communities for people to live in.”

The newest design for the Wee Hur development saves the Cranker, and in exchange can be built higher and quicker. Photo: supplied.

But Adelaide UNESCO City of Music general manager Joe Hay told InDaily that the legislation was a “huge statement from the government about their commitment to protecting live music and protecting culture”.

“I think the most important thing that has come out of this is that the Government has stood up and said that it’s there to protect live music and culture in the city,” he said.

“It’s a really strong statement saying that the culture of a city is important.”

Hay said the drafting of the Bill gave the Planning Minister flexibility to designate places ‘live music venues’.

“I was happy to see that [the Bill] covered the entire CBD – that enables venues to happen more than in just one place in the city,” he said.

“It’s not like this is about protecting one sound or one genre, this is about enabling different types of venues to exist in the city.”

What is a ‘live music venue’?

The Lower House committee considering the Bill also discussed the definition of a ‘live music venue’.

Champion was asked whether a karaoke bar was a ‘live music venue’, or whether a space where artists occasionally play acoustic music would attract protection under the Bill.

The Planning Minister said a “karaoke performance would not constitute live music” and neither would an “AI performer”.

“What we will see is bands. What we will see is live music – a range of performances – and they’ll be in a pub where I can buy the member for Bragg a bipartisan beer and we’ll enjoy the ambience, we’ll enjoy the music and I’ll be able to reminisce about my youth.”

Hay said it was important to have conversations about what is or isn’t a ‘live music venue’.

“I think there needs to be a bit of flexibility in the system to enable new venues to open so people can experiment and different sounds and styles can happen,” he said.

“I think we should be focused on that positive side of the conversation because the beauty of creativity is new things come along.

“Having a conversation about what is a live music venue was really the cornerstone of all of the reforms that led to the small venue licence.

“Fundamentally, this is a good outcome for democracy where people have spoken and governments have listened and actually found a compromise that will work between developers and culture – the different needs of a city – and finding a way to provide consistency.”