Complaints about gym noise

Tarawera Rd residents John MacRae and Debbie Smith want loud booming noise from their neighbours to stop.

Mr MacRae and Ms Smith each rent apartments next to Anytime Fitness - the 24-hour gym at Redwood Centre - and say the noise started three to four months ago and they hear it at any time of the day or night.

Anytime Fitness says the gym is operating within the guidelines of the Rotorua District Council's rules and there is little the gym can do.

Mr MacRae believed the noise was coming from patrons dropping weights on the floor in an area of the gym which is only several metres from his property.

"We hear them at 1am, 4am, all hours of the day... We are talking major noise. There is a real boom when it happens. It's a real thud. You think it's an earthquake," Mr MacRae said.

Ms Smith said the noise often woke her up and she had considered moving.

"It drives us nuts," she said.

Both tried to contact the gym to no avail.

They also contacted the council to complain and received a letter from the council's regulatory services manager Neven Hill earlier this month.

In his letter Mr Hill said the gym had reviewed its security footage to identify any offending apparatus and/or its users and one member had been given a written warning and others had been spoken to about inappropriate use of apparatus.

Mr Hill said the noise levels from the gym complied with the resource consent and the District Plan.

He said gym management had been proactive and conscious of issues that might arise and had sound-proofed much of the apparatus and equipment.

Mr MacRae said he could still hear the noises and questioned why the council had not been to his property to test the noise.

"What good is it telling me that they have carried out noise testing in the gym? I'm not complaining about the noise [that can be heard] at the gym, it's the noise that can be heard in the apartment."

After the Rotorua Daily Post spoke to Mr MacRae, he was issued with a trespass notice by the gym which he said came as a surprise.

He said he had only been to the gym once, emailed them once and called them once to ask them to get whoever was dropping weights to stop.

Ms Smith said the noises had got worse and more needed to be done.

Mr MacRae contacted Rotorua Mayor Kevin Winters and all Rotorua district councillors and had a response from all but one saying they would look into the issue.

Rotorua District Council planning services manager Liam Dagg said they had received seven noise complaints about the gym and that would be addressed as part of a wider review of the complex.

Anytime Fitness New Zealand operations manager Marlin Tohiariki said he was aware there had been a complaint but he thought it had been resolved.

Mr Tohiariki said the gym was operating within the guidelines of the council's rules and there was little the gym could do. He said he would ask the gym members again to be vigilant about what noise they were producing in the interest of fairness but until the council officially told them to reduce the noise, they would not be making any major changes.

Mr Tohiariki said the site of the gym was the premises available offered to them at the time. He said he wasn't aware of the trespass notice.