Overview

Fenced land encroachment

Road encroachments occur when an individual uses Council road reserve (formed and unformed legal road including footpaths) for private purposes such as planting, fencing, or building a garage or cardeck.

Due to Wellington’s steep and hilly environment most road encroachments are for residential car parking purposes. Only a limited number of commercial encroachments exist in Wellington, mainly for parking and signage.

Encroachment Licence

You must apply to the Council for an encroachment licence if you wish to use road reserve for your own purposes. A licence or lease is needed for structures that are built on, over or under the legal road.

Examples include:

• Garages
• Cardecks, carports or carpads
• Balconies
• Retaining walls
• Cable cars
• Gates and fences
• Covered access ways
• Porches
• Decks
• Underground carparking or foundations

Licence Requests

To request permission for an encroachment you must apply for:

• landowner consent and an encroachment licence
  Encroachment Application Form (88Kb PDF)
• any resource consents, if required - contact Urban Design, phone: (04) 801 3590
• any building consents, if required - contact Building Consents and Licensing Services, phone: (04) 801 3542

You can apply for both landowner consent and the encroachment licence by completing the Encroachment Application. The cost of processing this application is $168.75 including GST.

Details concerning the application process are available in the information sheet and flowchart below.

• Use of Legal Road Information Sheet (21Kb PDF)
• Encroachment Consent Process Flowchart (27Kb PDF)

Fees

Some encroachments require payment of an annual fee. Parking structures, decks and balconies for instance incur an annual charge per square metre.

More Information

Encroachments

Related Links

• Encroachments - Public Places Bylaw
• Road Encroachments Policy
• Building Services
• Parks and Gardens Services
• Reserves and Town Belt
• Removal / Pruning Policy - Trees on Encroachments
• Urban Design

Department Details:
Encroachments