The Council has adopted the final Fire and Smoke Nuisance Bylaw 2025.

The bylaw came into force on 20 October 2025 and is available in the 'documents' section of this page, and at wellington.govt.nz/your-council/plans-policies-and-bylaws/bylaws/fire-and-smoke-nuisance-bylaw-2025.

This project was a review of Part 3: Fire and Smoke Nuisance of the Wellington City Consolidated Bylaw 2008 (the ‘Fire and Smoke Nuisance Bylaw’). The purpose of the Fire and Smoke Nuisance Bylaw is to protect the public from the nuisance arising from fire and smoke, in regard to aspects other than fire safety.

The Local Government Act 2002 required this bylaw to be reviewed within ten years of the previous review. While updates to the bylaw were made in 2018, the last full statutory review was in 2015.

We reviewed the bylaw to ensure it was operating as intended. Our review found that the bylaw was functioning well and continued to be an effective tool for managing fire and smoke nuisance in the city.

More information is available in the Statement of Proposal for the bylaw review.

We reviewed the Fire and Smoke Nuisance Bylaw to ensure it was operating as intended. Our review found that the bylaw was functioning well and continued to be an effective tool for managing fire and smoke nuisance in the city.

More information is available in the Statement of Proposal for the bylaw review.

We proposed that the Council should continue to have a Fire and Smoke Nuisance Bylaw due to evidence of fire and smoke nuisance issues in Wellington City, and because the bylaw was functioning well.

We also suggested a small number of changes to the bylaw, mostly to remove it from the Council’s Consolidated Bylaw to become stand-alone.

More information about the changes we proposed is available in section 5 of the Statement of Proposal.

We asked the public for their thoughts on the bylaw review in June/July 2025. 48 individuals and one organisation made submissions. More than 80% of submitters told us that the Council should continue to have a bylaw for regulating fire and smoke nuisance.

More information is available in the Submissions Summary and Final Bylaw Decisions document.

The final bylaw contains one additional change to those proposed in the version for consultation. This is an update to the definition of ‘nuisance’ to include reference (but not limit the definition) to nuisances defined in sections 29(m) and 29(n) of the Health Act 1956.

As an action resulting from the bylaw review, the Council’s operational guidelines for responding to fire and smoke nuisance complaints are being updated and will be published at wellington.govt.nz/report-a-problem/smoke-from-fires. This will provide the community with more information about how fire and smoke nuisance is assessed.

More information is available in the Submissions Summary and Final Bylaw Decisions document.