Nelson City Council

Proposed Amended Draft Navigation Safety Bylaw 218 (March 2012)

Submissions closed 30 March

Thank you to all parties who made a submission, a hearing will be held on 10 May. Parties who indicated they wished to address council in their submission will be contacted prior to this

The Council reviewed the Navigation Safety Bylaw 2002 in 2010 and incorporated the Recreational Marina Bylaw 2005 in an amended Navigation Safety Bylaw 218.

Following the hearing of submissions and decisions on those submissions in 2010 the Council has (among other things) added a specific infringement regime that includes offences and penalties (fines) for those offences.

This infringement regime was not part of the original 2010 draft Bylaw. The Council is required to seek submissions on this new part (Clause 6.6, 6.7, 6.8 and Appendix 1 of the amended draft bylaw). The Council particularly wants feedback on this new infringement regime.

To ensure a robust process the Council is making the whole amended draft Bylaw available for further public submission under the Special Consultative Procedure under s83 of the Local Government Act 2002.

Submissions from submitters to the 2010 draft Bylaw will be taken as submissions to the amended 2012 draft bylaw.

A Statement of Proposal (the full Bylaw) and a Summary of the Statement of Proposal is available for inspection at the Council’s Customer Service Centre, at Public Libraries and in the downloads section below.

If requested a hearing of submitters will be held following the close of submissions.

Submissions close with the Council at 4pm on 30 March 2012.

Changes from the current bylaws

The reviewed bylaws generally incorporate the main provisions from the two existing bylaws. However there are some changes that need explanation.

1. The introduction of a “moving prohibited zone” and a “total exclusion zone” (clause 2.3), both of which arise from the recommendations of the Nelson Harbour Navigational Risk Assessment produced by Marico Marine in December 2007. This report concluded that the maximum risk for the Nelson Harbour was “related to the loss of control of a large vessel movement at the harbour entrance, due to traffic conflict with a small vessel”. The new provisions in the draft bylaw aim to limit this likelihood by ensuring that large vessels entering the harbour through The Cut have the entire waterway to themselves and their tugs, so that any unforeseen tide or wind effect can be countered without the need to work around other craft.

2. The introduction of a harbour recreational zoning scheme in clause 2.2 of the draft bylaw, which is supported by a map clearly outlining areas where incompatible uses will have priority determined. The Marico report had concluded that “there are a number of issues associated with leisure usage of the harbour, including the potential need to zone incompatible recreational activities (rowing, sail boarding, and waterskiing).

3. The Harbour Transit Lane (clause 2.4) is new. This is seen as another way to reduce conflict between recreational and commercial vessels and improve harbour safety. The recommended maximum speed for a vessel using this Transit Lane is to minimise wake height. The reason for this is that some types of vessels generally create less wake and use less fuel when travelling at higher speed. This should also encourage recreational craft to use this lane in preference to the main channel as it will enable them to more quickly reach The Cut.

4. The draft bylaw proposes to introduce a “hot work” permit (for gas cutting/burning/welding) as a result of the findings by Maritime New Zealand from its investigation into the fire on board the fishing vessel “Voyager” in April 2009. One of the safety recommendations from the Authority was that the Council reviews its definition of “master” within the Navigation and Safety Bylaw to ensure that it covered the duties of the person who controls the place of work.

5. Maritime New Zealand has written new laws on pilotage, so the bylaw now only focuses on general matters relating to pilotage.

Downloads

Download the full Statement of Proposal (1.8MB PDF)

Download the Summary Statement of Proposal (24KB PDF)