Rules reduction - SAY SOMETHING

From Scoop

Local Government Minister Paula Bennett has today launched the Rules Reduction initiative, opening the way for people to submit examples of property regulations and local rules that don’t make sense.

 More

There is a link to a submission form.

So SAY SOMETHING.

To Whom it may concern

Below are matters that have angered or bemused us over the past few years. I cannot name specific rules concerned but they cover a number of areas. We live in Eastbourne.

Street services
It was enormously frustrating dealing with Hutt Council Street Services when applying for consent to build a replacement garage. Despite us proposing a roller door as opposed to the existing angle open door, and there being no footpath on our side of the road, we were told to push the new structure further back or side ways. Logic or reason was absent. The staff attitude when dealing face-to-face was rude and arrogant.

Grass verges
Then there's the trees on the grass verge WE maintain. Natives dropping dying branches on cars, we couldn't be trusted to prune them or pay someone else to prune them. Again the attitude of the council was utterly unreasonable.

Dogs
When you find a local dog roaming, know its owner by sight but not where the owner lives, the council won't provide a contact for them insisting on collecting the dog and taking it to the pound. Mindless.

No dogs allowed - even leashed - in the main shopping street where people like to visit the library, cafes and ice cream shop combined with walking their dog. The rule sucks and is routinely ignored to no-one's chagrin it would seem.

Trees
The waste of money putting not just one sign at the base of one Norfolk tree in Nikau Street to acknowledge and publicise its 'notability' but erecting the same sign at the bottom of each of the six trees all in close proximity. Unnecessary.

The council ordering youngsters down the street to remove a basketball hoop from one of said special trees because it must be protected at all costs. Nuts.


If rules can't be agreed to by a majority (and even that principle  is imperfect) then they should be repealed.

There. It's done and only took a few minutes. (Warning though, I now feel bloody agitated.)

SAY SOMETHING


Update: The submission form is - guess what - overly bureaucratic. So I laid out my points in an e-mail and sent it to rulesreduction@dia.govt.nz. That is another legitimate avenue to have your say.

And why not send it to me too. I'll post submissions on the blog so we can all appreciate how unrestrainedly and  inanely rules-bound local councils have become.