23 May 2011
A draft revised Australian/New Zealand Standard on rural and urban addressing is now open for public comment.
'The purpose of the revision is to provide instructions for assigning addresses that can be readily and unambiguously identified and located,' said Debbie Chin, Chief Executive, Standards New Zealand.
'Reliable and readily understandable addresses are critical for emergency services, postal services and the community at large,' Mrs Chin said. 'The Standard establishes requirements and guidance for territorial authorities to use for assigning addresses; naming roads and localities; recording and mapping the related information; and the related signage.'
The Australian/New Zealand committee responsible for revising the Standard comprises central and local government authorities, mapping and land title offices, postal services and other key stakeholders, including LINZ and New Zealand Post.
Anselm Haanen, Deputy Surveyor-General, who represented LINZ on the committee, says 'the Standard is not mandatory or retrospective, but it will be far-reaching. It identifies key areas for improvement and clarification and LINZ will be expecting a high level of conformance from Councils'.
The draft revised Standard aims to keep addresses as simple as possible. Significant proposed changes include:
- Road types must be selected from a list
- Addressing of complex sites is simplified
- New method for sub addressing on multi-level buildings is specified, and
- Water based addressing is covered.
The draft Standard outlines key specifications to assist in the clarification of commonly misinterpreted areas of addressing.
Road naming
- The type of road name chosen must be selected from a limited list, and should reflect whether the road is a through road, a cul-de-sac, or primarily for pedestrian use.
- Requires all publicly accessible formed roads to be named, including those on private land.
- It is proposed that an address is not allowed to include two road names (such as within complexes like retirement villages).
- A short cul-de-sac or private road with five or less address sites may be treated as a simple driveway and address numbers assigned to the road onto which the cul-de-sac connects.
Address number suffixes
- Suffixes on address numbers (as in '37B') are limited to the five letters A – E.
Sub-addressing on multi-level buildings
- Sub-address numbers in multi-level buildings shall use the same system commonly used in hotels, where '207' means the address is on the second floor.
Water based addressing
- A number of sites within New Zealand are routinely accessed by water, rather than road, so specific provisions for assigning addresses in these cases have been outlined.
The revised Standard is intended primarily for use by territorial authorities who have the statutory responsibility for addressing.
The public comment phase closes on 10 June 2011. You can download the draft revised Standard and provide feedback here.
== ENDS ==
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