Naming roads full of twists and turns

Cyperus St, Kohuhohuni St or Tributary St — just what should “Road 11” in a new Auckland subdivision be called?

New roads need names, and these are the sort of questions developers, politicians and even NZ Post face during the road-naming process.

Developers of new subdivisions propose names for new roads which then have to be approved by the relevant council. In Auckland, it is the local boards’ job to approve new names.

Upper Harbour Local Board chairwoman Lisa Whyte said members usually dealt with “a couple” of roadnaming suggestions at each meeting.

“It’s quite tough actually for developers now because the rules say the street names have to be unique in Auckland.

“In legacy council it was unique in that suburb, obviously there’s lots of School Rds, Beach Rds all around the city, and to prevent that happening again I think they’ve gone a little bit too far,” she said.

“A road name that’s used in Pukekohe can’t be used in Upper Harbour, but in reality that’s not going to get the postal service or the emergency services lost. But neighbouring local boards areas it would . . . I actually think it’s made it really difficult and developers are really struggling to come up with ideas.”

Auckland Council has a list of guidelines it recommends local boards adhere to when deciding on road names.

The guidelines state road names must not pose a risk to emergency services or cause confusion, and must reflect the unique heritage of an area. Using the names of living people is “not encouraged”.

Whyte said developers often suggest themes. “You’ve got existing subdivisions that are all birds, or they’re all streams, or they’re all water bodies, a period from history or something — but that doesn’t always work,” she said.

“We had a developer in Albany whose proposal was rooms in the Palace of Versailles. We had a real problem with that because although the names themselves met the criteria in that they were unique, they had absolutely no relevance to Albany. It would be a bit odd to be living in a street in Albany related to a palace in France.” Whyte said there was also a focus on introducing more road names in te reo Maori.

Whyte said she was recently talking to a friend who owns a property in Albany in a traditionally named street, having also owned a rental property in a themed area.

“We’ve got an abundance of birds and bugs . . . their rental property was on Spotted Wren Drive, off Mollusc and off Weta . . . like [Sir] David Attenborough had named our streets.”

An NZ Post spokeswoman said some councils asked developers to send it a list of proposed new street names to check for postal issues.

A spokesman for real estate agents Ray White said street names “definitely do have a bearing on people’s purchasing decisions”.