Council-led consultation exercise: noise control standard

March 10, 2021

Whangarei District Council (WDC) is currently notifying relevant property owners, and anyone with a greater interest than the general public, about an alteration that we are proposing be made to Proposed Urban and Services District Plan Changes that were publicly notified in May of 2019.

In short, we believe that the changes that Council wants to make to the District Plan should include adoption of the national ‘Port Noise Standard’ used in best practice land-use planning elsewhere across New Zealand.

There is now a requirement under the recently-introduced National Planning Standards that District Plans refer to this ‘Port Noise Standard’. We believe the council made an error by not doing so.

The Council-led consultation currently underway is a joint Council / Northport exercise approved by the Environment Court, designed to help inform affected parties of the changes that Northport has asked WDC to make to its proposed District Plan changes, in order to bring the plan into line with other New Zealand districts and the national planning standards.

The attached three documents explain our position in a little more detail:

- Port Noise Standards Summary

- Port Noise Information Sheet

- Map; Marsden Bay noise control boundaries