Dux Central owner Richard Sinke. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Christchurch's plan to bring new life to its inner city centres includes boosting the number of residents who live there, but nightlife venues say that could also threaten them.
The number of those living in Christchurch's central city is aimed to almost triple over the next five years.
Entertainment venue owners are worried they could be put out of business if new residents could kick up a fuss about live music gigs.
Darkroom owner Nick Vassar is concerned about 18 new townhouses being built across from him.
"If you are building townhouses or residential complexes next to live music venues, there are going to be issues. It threatens our livelihoods and threatens the future of art and culture in the city.
"It's obviously a concern, especially when one person essentially can shut your business down and that's all it takes- one person to complain enough," he said.
Vassar has reason to be worried, because one Christchurch venue, Dux Central, had live music shut down because of a local resident's complaint.
Darkroom owner Nick Vassar. Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Dux Central owner Richard Sinke said was gutted to have to scrap live music, and would support noise limits increasing in his patch.
Current noise rules have been in place since 2012.
"It's a real shame for us that we can't play the music as and when we'd like to. It means a whole segment of our market later in the evening we can't achieve anymore, because we can't have music," he said.
Sinke said all the venues in the area were feeling concerned.
"We're one of the bigger, well-known ones but there's other smaller venues, they're having apartments built right next to them and on top of them, and they pretty much solely rely on live music as their trade - so for them it's devastating."
At a recent Christchurch City Council meeting, councillors unanimously agreed on a number of initiatives to help residents and entertainment businesses co-exist downtown.
These included looking at promoting the central city as a "vibrant" environment, and finding a way to advise potential buyers they are moving into a live-music area.
Any changes to noise or building insulation standards would be part of a plan-change process and would take at least two years.
The council report said both live music and residential living were important for the vibrancy of the city's primary commercial centre, and there were "no quick fixes" to the conflicts in mixed-use areas.
While venue owners supported the initiatives, they said action was needed sooner to protect inner-city nightlife. Vassar said for the venues on his street, the situation was urgent.
"For us it will be too long, it will be too late - townhouses will be built next to our venues, so we are hoping there will be more immediate action."
The council aims to have 20,000 people in the central city by 2028, a massive jump from the roughly 7700 at the moment.
But venue owners said new people could bring new issues and conflicts, especially in what had been traditionally a mixed-use environment with residents who knew what inner-city life involved.
Christchurch woman Alison Stringer has lived in the central city for about 40 years. She said both residents and live music venues should think carefully about what they were buying into.
"It comes down to the fact that if you're buying into an area where there's likely to be noise levels, do your due diligence before you purchase. And on the other hand, if you were thinking about opening a venue and there were already apartments around, that's the reverse - it would be on the person opening that business," she said.
The problem is not going to go away. A recent council survey of central city residents found nearly 40 percent were bothered by noise of all types.
