Aside from the gymnasium operating at the inner city Adelaide address for more than 15 years neighbours’ complaints about newly installed air conditioners near the common boundary brought it to the Adelaide City Council that the gym had never been granted Planning Approval.
A Section 84 Notice (Enforcement Notice) was served on the owner of the building because the gymnasium apparently had never been formally approved. In everyone’s opinion the land use was considered appropriate in the Capital City Zone and should be granted planning approval.
However the issue that became evident were disabled access as the existing building was full of stairs to all three levels.This was raised as an obstacle to the building being granted Building/ Development Approval. We subsequently engaged an access consultant who advices us that because the building was constructed prior to the latest Disability (Access to Premises –Building) Standards were released in May 2011 some exemption should apply. The exception is further explained in detail in the Australian Human Rights Commissions publication Guidelines on the application of the Premises Standards, Version 2, and February 2013.
Further to these access issues noise was an issue the music played during exercise sessions via an IPod and sound system setup was considered excessive. The gymnasium operators were requested to consider the neighbours with regard to the volume they play music at. As the building had high level south facing windows the noise of music from the exercise sessions was clearly evident to the neighbouring property. The installation of one centimetre thick acrylic sheeting on the inside of the high level glazing fixed the noise problem. Subsequent noise testing confirmed that the sheeting had created enough mass to attenuate the noise to the required legislated level.
The air conditioning plant that has been installed is (3) 7 Kilowatt split system Mitsubishiunits. The installer has informed me the dB (A) output is 63 d B (A) and this statistic is actually fixed on the side of the unit. To address the air conditioner noise “bafflers” were installed at least one metre away from the unit so proper air circulation still occurs
Acrylic sheeting being installed
The disability access and noise issues finally addressed the gym continued operating as before with happier neighbours and with the proper development approval finally granted by Council some 16 years after the gym commenced operation at the premises.
The multi-level gym was a disability access disaster