Recycling reiteration:
There’ll be no pick-up of kerbside recycling tomorrow (Friday 27 March) – residents of the eastern suburbs – ie Houghton
Valley, Lyall Bay, Kilbirnie and the Miramar Peninsula - are asked not to put their recycling out.
A lot of residents of Newtown and the southern suburbs – mainly the Island Bay area – will have to retrieve their
recycling bins and bags and either store the recycling or transfer the materials to their yellow rubbish bags for
collection next week.
We’re sorry about this – but the recycling sorting station in the Hutt Valley is now closed – so the recycling
collection service has ended until further notice.Willis Street pipe renewal - update
The installation of the replacement Willis St pipeline is now complete. The new underground pipe is in place and
working, and the overground pipe can now be removed.
A huge amount of effort went into this project over the last few months, with the result we’ve managed to complete the
work to target.
We're looking forward to opening Willis Street to through traffic, after the street is resealed, by mid-next week.Basin Reserve:
The Basin Reserve is closed to the general public while the lockdown continues – this is mainly for security reasons.Noise control – and loving thy neighbour:
As we all know we’re living in unusual times – it’s kind of like we’re on a holiday. But not like a typical Wellington
holiday when loads of people leave town.
This time we’re mostly all at home – so the suburbs are full of people. So we’re asking everyone to love thy neighbour
and show tolerance – there’ll be more ambient noise around the neighbourhood because there are more people about than
there are at Christmas or Easter.
During the lockdown we can’t send noise control officers out to enforce noise complaints for obvious health and safety
reasons. Complaints of noise from parties or gatherings will be passed straight to the Police as breaches of the
lockdown.
We just ask Wellingtonians to be both respectful and tolerant of neighbours and keep the noise down during the lockdown.Consenting and compliance work
This relates to resource and building consents, food and liquor licensing, and dog registration. The Council’s
consenting and compliance services certainly haven’t closed down – but Covid-19 means we’ve had to cut back some of the
things we normally do.
We’re prioritising work that relates to essential services or public health and safety.
We’re continuing to process applications where we can while also preparing for resumption of full services as quickly as
possible.
To meet requirements of the lockdown, we can’t do site visits, building inspections nor have face-to-face meetings with
clients.
New resource consent applications, including all non-resource consent applications (e.g. change of conditions etc),
should use our new online lodgement portal or alternatively email applications to planning.admin@wcc.govt.nz .Building compliance and consents
We recommend people do not undertake work that requires a building consent at this time. If you are carrying out DIY
work please be mindful of the impacts of noise on your neighbours.
If you lodge a building consent for non-essential work during the lockdown we will progress this as best we can. We
strongly recommend submitting any application online or by email. If you have already lodged a hard copy consent and
have any questions please contact us on bcc@wcc.govt.nz
Building Warrants of Fitness (BWoF), and the maintenance of life safety systems, is an essential service. Building
owners must carry out maintenance in accordance with the Compliance Schedule and current Building Warrant of Fitness
even if this is during the lockdown period. Information can be accessed here under ‘Building and Construction’. If you are an affected building owner we will be contacting you to discuss how this can be conducted while respecting
social isolation procedures.Land Information Memoranda (LIMs)
As LIMs require access to our City Archives – which are closed - we are unable to process current or new LIM
applications until further notice.Alcohol licensing and food registration:
Though most businesses are closed for the duration, we will continue to process all existing and any new applications.
Anyone who has a licence that is due to be renewed during this shutdown period will be contacted to confirm whether they
wish to renew that licence however we will be unable to progress any renewals until we are back to normal business. Once
businesses are permitted to start trading again we will allocate extra resource to ensure these applications are
processed ASAP.Dog control and registrations:
Registration fees are not due until 1 July 2020. In the meantime any registrations for new puppies or dogs entering
Wellington will be processed so that we have their details on the National Dogs Database. We will not charge
registration fees for dogs registered during the lockdown period.
Dog Pound – animal control officers will return any wandering dogs directly to their owners rather than deliver them to
the pound (following social-distancing protocols)