10 September 2025
File Ref: IRC-8915
Wellington City Rural Rate Payer
[FYI request #31997 email]
Tēnā koe Wellington City Rural Rate Payer
Thank you for your email dated 18 August 2025, to Te Kaunihera o Pōneke | Wellington City
Council (the Council) requesting the following information:
•
What are the Rights of Ways (RoWs) owned and/or managed by Parks and Reserves,
their public name, the number of properties served by each.
•
If Hawkins Hill Road is owned and/or managed by another department. •
What are the RoWs owned and/or managed by that department, their
public name, the number of properties served by each.
Your request has been considered under the Local Government Official Information and
Meetings Act 1987 (LGOIMA).
Refinement of request and response update: On 21 August 2025, the Council requested that you refine your original information request,
as the initial wording would have required a search through a substantial volume of material.
You subsequently clarified that your intent was to better understand the conditions of the
Hawkins Hill Right of Way (RoW) and to compare these with other RoWs managed by the
Parks, Sport and Recreation (PSR) team. Specifically, you requested that, once relevant RoWs
are identified, the Council provide the number of dwellings served by each, any documented
assessments of their capacity, and available traffic volume data.
RoW managed by the PSR Team: RoWs are a form of easement that grant access across private property and are formally
recorded with Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), rather than within the Council’s
internal systems.
The PSR team manages approximately 3,000 hectares of reserve land. Most RoWs located on
reserve land exist to enable utility providers to install, upgrade, or maintain public
infrastructure. As these RoWs are recorded in the LINZ system and not centrally held by the
Council, the information is not readily accessible and cannot be easily collated. Retrieving
this data incurs a cost. When the PSR team requires RoW information for a specific land
parcel, they request it from LINZ, which charges a fee of $8 per parcel for each title and
easement document. As many RoW easements are recorded on historic titles, searches
would need to include both current and historic records.
Obtaining RoW information across the full 3,000 hectares managed by PSR would require
significant staff time and result in considerable cost. Accordingly, this part of your request is
refused under Section 17(f) of the LGOIMA, as the information cannot be made available
without substantial collation or research.
If you wish to proceed, the Council can contact LINZ to explore options for estimating the
total cost of retrieving the information and for Council staff to collate the data. Please note
that payment would be required in advance.
Alternatively, you may wish to use the Council’s publicly available mapping tool to identify
specific land parcels of interest. You can then request RoW information directly from LINZ,
which may help reduce the overall cost.
To support your request for comparison, the team has identified RoWs for which the Council
has previously obtained and paid for information from LINZ. We will focus on RoWs that
provide specific access to private property, rather than easements in gross used solely for
infrastructure maintenance. As noted earlier, this information is difficult to collate, and
additional time is required to prepare our response. Accordingly, this part of your request
has been extended under Section 14(1)(a) of LGOIMA, as meeting the original time limit
would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the Council. The new due date for this
response is
1 October 2025.
Comparison with Hawkins Hill: Following consultation with the PSR team, we can confirm that the Hawkins Hill RoW is
considered a unique case. There are no other RoWs managed by the PSR team that are
comparable in nature or context.
Information on Hawkins Hil : For an assessment of Hawkins Hill Road, please refer to the Tonkin + Taylor Report presented
at the Council meeting
in November 2018. We have interpreted your request for “Public Name” to refer to the property address and/or
legal description. This information is publicly available via the Council’s online property
maps. Each land parcel includes both an address and legal description. Please refer
to Appendix One for further details.
I trust this information is helpful. If you have any concerns about the response please
contac
t [email address]. Alternatively, you are advised of your right to raise
any concerns with the Office of the Ombudsman
at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or
freephone 0800 802 602.
Nāku noa, nā
Asha Harry
Official Information & Privacy
Wellington City Council
Wellington City Council | 2 of 4
Appendix one: Hawkins Hil Address & Legal Description
Address
Legal Description
46 Hawkins Hill Road Brooklyn LOT 1 DP 444068 - SUBJ TO ROW &
6021
ESMTS
54 Hawkins Hill Road Brooklyn LOT 2 DP 444068
6021
280 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 1 DP 438179 - SUBJ TO ROW
Brooklyn 6021
320 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 2 DP 499902 - SUBJ TO & INT IN ROW,
Brooklyn 6021
SUBJ TO ESMTS
328 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 1 DP 499902 - SUBJ TO & INT IN ROW,
Brooklyn 6021
INT IN ESMTS
380 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 16 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
430 Hawkins Hill Road
SEC 1 SO 31179 - INT IN R/W ON DP
Brooklyn 6021
81898
491 Hawkins Hill Road
SECS 1-6 SO 24952 SECS 1 2 SO 31242
Brooklyn 6021
(SECS 1 2 SO 31242 SUBJ TO & INT IN
ROWON DP 87898) SEC 1 SO 28033 -
HAWKINSRADAR STATION
500 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 15 & 17 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INTIN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
701 Hawkins Hill Road
PT LOT 1 DP 26908
Brooklyn 6021
720 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 10 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
721 Hawkins Hill Road
LOT 9 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
80 Southernthread Road
LOT 2 DP 481107 - SUBJ TO ROW
Brooklyn 6021
82 Southernthread Road
LOT 2 DP 433868 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW
84 Southernthread Road
LOTS 1 3 DP 433868 - SUBJ TO & INT
Brooklyn 6021
INROW
Wellington City Council | 3 of 4
90 Southernthread Road
LOT 3 DP 481107 LOT 9 DP 392856 LOT
Brooklyn 6021
6DP 340327 - PT SUBJ TO & INT IN ROW -
SUBJ TO QEII OPEN SPACE COVENANTS
260 Southernthread Road
LOT 2 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
331 Southernthread Road
LOT 14 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
370 Southernthread Road
LOT 5 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
448 Southernthread Road
LOT 4 DP 481107 - SUBJ TO ROW
Brooklyn 6021
450 Southernthread Road
LOT 3 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
451 Southernthread Road
LOT 13 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
452 Southernthread Road
LOT 4 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
465 Southernthread Road
LOT 12 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
510 Southernthread Road
LOT 6 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW& ESMT
541 Southernthread Road
LOT 11 DP 462620 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW & ESMT
692 Southernthread Road
LOT 6 DP 392856 - SUBJ TO & INT IN
Brooklyn 6021
ROW - SUBJ TO QEII OPEN SPACE
COVENANT -483 M2 BUILDINGS & LAND
ON ROAD RESERVE
Wellington City Council | 4 of 4
