18 May, 2007
For Immediate Release

Billboards to Remain on Auckland Cityscape

Auckland’s outdoor advertising industry is celebrating a decision not to recommend a proposal to ban billboards from Auckland City.

After considering almost two weeks of verbal submissions from almost 500 submitters and more than 1700 written submissions, the commissioners examining a proposed new bylaw have voted against recommending the ban.

Instead the commissioners have recommended all existing, legally established billboards will be allowed to remain in place but a new bylaw proposal will apply tougher conditions on new billboards.

“While that recommendation has yet to go to full Council for final ratification in June, we’re very pleased that the Commissioners listened to what was said at the hearings and have acted on a clear majority of public and industry opinion. That weight of opinion said they couldn’t and shouldn’t introduce a bylaw banning billboards and seriously damaging our industry,” said Outdoor Advertising Association chairman, Duncan Harris.

“Having said that we as an industry have to recognise that Council does want to make quicker progress on improving the amenity value of our city and we have to work with them accordingly. We’ve been given that opportunity now and we have to make sure we take it.”

Among the recommendations going forward from the Commissioners to Council for approval are tougher guidelines on the location, height, size and lighting of billboards and tougher enforcement measures that could see non-complying billboards removed or their content covered within just 24 hours.

There will also be no new free standing billboards allowed in the city.

Many of the recommendations from the Commissioners were contained in an alternative bylaw drafted by APN Outdoor/OAANZ. The hearing panel have also recommended that Council takes up an offer by the industry to work on issues around heritage concerns, no-go areas and protecting key entry points to the downtown city area.

Mr Harris said another major discussion point for Council would be the future of up to 50 billboard sites in the inner city that were scheduled for redevelopment.

“Redevelopment means those sites could be no longer available to us within about two years. It was made clear to us that the Commissioners and Council wanted to be sure that these sites would contribute to the ongoing decrease of billboard numbers in the inner city.”

Mr Harris said the outdoor industry was pleased to retain its current sites and looked forward to greater certainty about controls for the future.

“In the end, I think we both got what we wanted out of this process. The industry won’t suffer the significant damage the initial bylaw would have caused and the Council does get better control and tighter restrictions around our industry for the future.

“Just as importantly we both will have a forum for ongoing dialogue to resolve issues as they come up.”

ENDS

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