Buried in the proposed new rules in the 2GP (the replacement for the current district plan) is a rule about fencing that has little claim to having any right in it.
This rule in the 2GP proposes fences built on the street in a residential area will be either no higher than 1.4 metres, or will be see-through over that height.
This rule has major failings in that:
•It is based on supposed community support from the people's panel which just does not exist.
•IThe reasons for it are poor and inconsistent, and the reasons against it have not been taken into account.
•ILaw abiding citizens may well unknowingly fall foul of the rule and this could well restrict the value of their property on sale.
The genesis of this rule was a question the people's panel were asked about several years ago, and 75% of them did not support it.
In fact, only about 7% of the participants wanted restrictions below 1.5 metres.
Undeterred by this lack of support, the proposed rule found its way into the 2GP.
This rule has little good reason and restricts freedom without thinking about why people want more substantial fences.
Any reasons for restricting what fences we build should be compelling, and at least as important as the reasons we have for staying with the current arrangement.
In this case, the reasons for wanting to keep fences low enough for people passing by to look into your front yard, or maybe even your bedroom, is cited as safety (burglars will be discouraged from trying to break in to your house because they may be seen, although it will be good for peeping toms) and amenity, meaning passersby like to be able to see in.
These reasons need to be put alongside reasons people build higher front fences, such as keeping the dog in, keeping traffic noise out, not wanting people to see into your bedroom, wanting to be able to sit in your front yard without being supervised by passersby, having a place to put your washing out without it being looked at etc.
The rule is not proposed to apply to hedges and shrubberies, or down the side of your property, or in your back yard, which suggests that the burglar reason is not that important even to those proposing the rule.
As regards amenity, it is hard to imagine the amenity of strangers seeing into your bedroom and being savaged by your escaping dog trumps a property owner's understandable desire to keep passersby out and their own activities in.
Good rules restricting freedom on your own property should also not make good citizens unwittingly in breach of council requirements.
This proposed rule could do precisely that.
Who would think about whether their fence is over 1.4 metres but is visually permeable along a minimum of 40 % of the entire structure (palings maximum width 150mm, spacing width 25mm) including gates but not applying to any hedging and taking the height measurement from ground level to the top of the fence where the fence is atop a retaining wall?
If you happened to work out you may need a resource consent, and you realised you could pay $500 or more to get council to bless it or not, chances are even good law-abiding citizens would either put the whole fence thing in the too hard basket or just build it without asking.
Then if council finds out you have breached the rule, it will turn up on a LIM report when you try to sell your house, and may put off a purchaser.
If you fall out with your neighbours and they dob you in to council, council may come looking for you and demand that you remove the offending fence.
In short, it is rule suggested with little right in it, against the weight of reason and against a backdrop of lack of support by those consulted during its development.
I urge you to get in among this new plan, and make submissions to any parts you feel strongly about.
Ask for the summary pages - the entire plan is over 1600 pages and incomprehensible.
As Mark Twain said so eloquently, if you laid all of our laws end to end, there would be no end.
Still it is a worthwhile ambition to discourage silly new rules and restrictions on our freedoms.
