FAQs - Signs Bylaw

As drafted, signs allowed under the District Plan do not fall under the bylaw. However, a bylaw and District Plan can exist side by side and one does not override the other by mere fact of existence. It is best that both legal instruments do not clash with each other.

In our case, the District Plan and bylaw have overlapping provisions that need resolving. The District Plan contains some impractical provisions that would be unworkable for the public if left as is. However, modifying the District Plan is an expensive and lengthy process, and is not worth it given upcoming changes to the resource management regime.

We have decided to retain the bylaw provisions where most practical, even if it clashes with the District Plan, to ensure the bylaw remains realistically workable for the public. The consequences of clashing provisions are very minor and unlikely to eventuate. Although the legal discrepancy is not ideal, we believe it is the most efficient way to sort out the issue of conflict between the two instruments.

The types of signs regulated by the bylaw include signs on public, Council-owned land:

• portable signs on public land (these are outside the scope of the District Plan)
• election signage
• community and event signs
• real estate signs

It does not manage permanent signs on private or public land, signs on reserve land, or signs on land owned by Greater Wellington Regional Council.

Wood waratahs help protect site users’ safety. Although we check underground services via beforeUdig NZ, the maps used may not be 100% accurate as the actual location of services may shift from mapped positions due to ground movement. The only way to determine the exact location of a service is to dig the location up, which is costly and can put a site out of commission temporarily.

While the likelihood of striking a service is significantly reduced via vetting, requiring wood waratahs is the safest option to ensure a rogue line is not accidentally struck. The consequences of striking an underground service can range from a loss in service to serious injury or worse. If we can avoid someone getting hurt by requiring wooden stakes we will do so. The practice of requiring wooden stakes is done by other councils, such as Kapiti and Tauranga.  

Some parts of the District Plan are much stricter than the bylaw, to a degree that is impractical.

For example:

• The District Plan requires temporary signs to be at least 50m from a wider range of landmarks (signs, pedestrian crossings, curves with chevron signing, railway crossing as well as an intersection). In practice, this radically reduces the number of places temporary signs can go. In the bylaw, the restriction is a minimum of 50m from an intersection only.
• The District Plan mandates minimum lettering heights for signs. The bylaw is silent on this matter.
• The District Plan mandates unrealistically short timeframes for display, compared to the bylaw. For example, the maximum display time for community signs is shortened from 30 days before the event to one week before the event.
• If there was no bylaw, real estate directional signage would fall under much stricter requirements. For example, directional signage has maximum dimensions and cannot be put into Council berms – much stricter than the bylaw at the moment.
• The District Plan requires signs on public places to be less than 2m in residential areas, which would result in a number of signs suddenly becoming non-compliant.

We are consulting on keeping the bylaw for several reasons

• The District Plan is too inflexible to manage approved sites – a bylaw is the best way to have a clear legal basis for having approved sites
• The new resource management regime has indicated that visual amenity cannot be considered when making decisions under the new planning legislation. This means it is possible the management of signs may no longer be allowed in planning documents, meaning it may a good idea to keep a bylaw in the interim.

A bylaw is needed to manage matters that fall outside the District Plan’s ambit (eg portable signs, sign content).

Contact our Monitoring and Compliance team at 04 237 5089 and we can take it from there.

If there is a sign at an intersection, motorists need time to process a sign before braking. We want to avoid accidents by ensuring intersections are free of unnecessary distractions.

Note that the ban is not absolute – if someone wishes to place a sign within 50 metres of an intersection, they can apply for a permit under the bylaw. This differs from the current requirement for vehicle parking, which sets a minimum distance of 6 metres from an intersection. Since signs may contain more detailed information than vehicles, a greater distance could be considered appropriate to minimise potential distractions.

Technically, the maximum display time takes its cues from the Electoral Act (which only applies to general elections). While it is not explicitly stated to be nine weeks, the legislation states that restrictions around display periods do not apply for nine weeks before election day.  

No maximum timeframe is set out in the Local Electoral Act 2001, which manages local elections. Technically, we can set a different length of time for local elections We are open to feedback on whether the duration of display should be shorter or longer.

Implementing a ban on election signs through the bylaw would be challenging, as such signs are still technically permitted under the District Plan. Removal would require a costly plan change, and instituting a ban could create a significant conflict with the District Plan. While the likelihood of legal action is low, since court proceedings would be required, there is potential for reputational risk if a direct conflict arises between these regulatory instruments.

We remain interested in receiving further feedback on whether it is worthwhile to consider banning, or introducing stricter controls on, certain types of signs in the future.

If we didn’t have a bylaw, we would have to use the District Plan to manage temporary signs. Some of the District Plan’s rules are unreasonably strict and would be unworkable for our community. No bylaw would leave us without an instrument to manage portable signs and the content of signs.