Brian Rudman: Council mega-screen plan pumps up the decibels and the debate

Auckland is short of theatrical spaces, and to compromise any is a scandal. Photo / APN

If you or I crank the stereo up too loud and annoy the neighbours, Auckland City Council sends out the noise police to confiscate the offending equipment. But when the noise maker is the council itself, different rules apply.

The council is paying $1.65 million for a giant TV screen to preside over newly remodelled Aotea Square and, like any self-respecting home theatre purchaser, wants a sound system to shock and awe the neighbours.

Not happy with the present district plan noise restriction of 65 decibels for the square, the council wants the barrier raised to 85 decibels for up to "45 screen events each year including symphonies, festivals, major sporting events and films".

Just why you would want to screen a film of a symphony concert outside the Auckland Town Hall, when you could go inside one of the world's great acoustic venues and hear the real thing, is beyond me. But the real issue is how this level of sound will affect anyone sitting inside the Town Hall, the Aotea Centre or adjacent buildings.

Experts equate 85 decibels with the intensity of a bulldozer idling, a vacuum cleaner on carpet or city traffic. You know you're listening at 85 decibels if you have to raise your voice to be heard by someone alongside. It's the level where you start to lose hearing if it continues for a long time.

A council spokesman says an on-site sound test at 85 decibels was conducted last Monday morning, and joked that the only people to complain were from the mayor's office. He said it couldn't be heard in the Town Hall auditorium, but that's not what I've been told. Indeed, Chris Day from Marshall Day Acoustics, the council's advisers on this project, says the noise transference into the Town Hall at that level would be so great that "it's basically been agreed that they wouldn't run simultaneous events".

In other words, the Town Hall would be unuseable up to 45 occasions a year. After I began asking questions yesterday, the council issued a statement claiming 35 of the 45 events would occur between 7am and 10pm, and only 10 events between 7am and midnight. I'm not sure how that is supposed to reassure anyone.

In recognition of the problem, the council has quietly handed over around $100,000 to the Q Theatre Trust to soundproof its new theatre being built near the Town Hall from unwanted Aotea Square noises. Its consultant is also Marshall Day.

The adjacent private cinema complex reportedly came through Monday's experiment unscathed. Aotea Centre though, has problems. Mr Day says the sound will be audible in the foyers - but not in the auditorium - and that management have agreed to tolerate it.

When approached, management at The Edge, the council organisation running both the Town Hall and the Aotea Centre, refused to comment. However my sources indicate that far from being happy, The Edge considers the sound level proposed as totally unacceptable, rendering the existing venues unhireable.

Sitting in the Town Hall a while back and hearing a small group of Palestinian supporters protest against the visiting Jerusalem Quartet, was proof it doesn't need 85 decibels to get your message into the auditorium.

Mr Day emphasised to me that the 85 decibels would be the level near the assorted speaker poles, rather than at the edges of the square. But Monday's experiment revealed that there is still a problem. And that's without the added noise of an excited crowd, revved up by an excited sports commentator, or, more unlikely I admit, a stirring finale by the Berlin Philharmonic.

It seems bizarre that the Eden Park resource consent restricts the venue to a boundary maximum of 55 decibels. Even the Western Springs speedway is restricted to 60 decibels - and that for just a few days a year. Yet in the Aotea Square canyon, the council itself wants to wind the noise levels up to an ear-jarring 85 decibels.

Auckland is disgracefully short of theatrical spaces. To compromise not just one, but both the main venues is a scandal. That Auckland City Council is both perpetrator and victim is not just incomprehensible, but this week's good reason for voting it out of existence as fast as possible.