‘Moving sign’ rejected: Digital billboard plan axed

A council planner's put a pin in an application for this billboard. Photo: File
A council planner's put a pin in an application for this billboard. Photo: File
Plans for a digital billboard on the side of Queenstown’s Crowne Plaza hotel have been scuppered by the council, on the basis it’s been deemed a ‘‘moving sign’’.

Bigavision Ltd wanted to erect the seven-metre-deep, 34 square metre billboard on the Shotover Street side of the hotel, where it would display advertising messaging aimed at pedestrians and motorists 24/7, changing at least every 60 seconds.

It would have dis placed an 11sqm ‘Crowne Plaza Queenstown’ sign, to have been  relocated above it.

The application, lodged late last year, attracted almost 50 submissions, the vast majority against the idea.

Submitters variously labelled the billboard ‘‘offensive’’, ‘‘a monstrosity’’, ‘‘dangerous’’, the ‘‘thin edge of the wedge’’, and likely to ‘‘destroy the character of Queenstown’’.

Planning consultant Wendy Baker’s put the kibosh on the application, because moving signs are prohibited under the operative district plan.

‘‘Having reached this conclusion, I have now been instructed to return this application to you,’’ Baker said in an email to the applicant.

‘‘Council will not be processing it any further.’’

tracey.roxburgh@scene.co.nz

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