Wellington City District Plan - Noise Insulation Rule
13.14.1.1.5 [Noise Insulation]1
Any habitable room in a building used by a noise sensitive activity within the Te Ara Haukawakawa Precinct shall be protected from noise arising from outside the building by ensuring the external sound insulation level achieves the following minimum performance standard:
DnTw + Ctr > 30 dB
Compliance with this performance standard shall be achieved by ensuring habitable rooms are designed and constructed in a manner that:
- accords with the schedule of typical building construction set out in Appendix 9;
or
- accords with an acoustic design certificate signed by a suitably qualified acoustic engineer stating the design as proposed will achieve compliance with the above performance standard.
Ventilation
Where bedrooms with openable windows are proposed, a positive supplementary source of fresh air ducted from outside is required at the time of fit-out. For the purposes of this requirement, a bedroom is any room intended to be used for sleeping. The supplementary source of air is to achieve a minimum of 7.5 litres per second per person.
The noise rule seeks to protect amenities between activities and to protect the amenities of residential and public space areas around the Te Ara Haukawakawa area through the use of noise rules.
[Because of the sound environment created by existing activities within and around the precinct, the Council is concerned to ensure that all residential development and buildings that house other noise sensitive activities are adequately designed to ensure protection of the activities from external noise sources. For this reason a condition has been imposed to require habitable rooms in buildings used for noise sensitive activities to meet specific acoustic standards. The ventilation requirement for bedrooms is required to ensure noise attenuation is not compromised if compliance with the requirements of the Building Code (G4) for natural ventilation is achieved by installing openable windows. The required airflow level is based on the minimum standard for habitable spaces set out in NZS 4303.]2
Noise from construction, maintenance and demolition activities, including those associated with urgent repair of utilities to maintain continuity of service, on any site or on any road shall comply with, and be measured and assessed using the recommendations of NZS6803P:1984 The Measurement and Assessment of Noise from Construction, Maintenance and Demolition Work. Nothing in the noise rules shall be used to prevent emergency work from taking place. Such work would arise from the need to protect life or limb or minimise or prevent loss or serious damage to property or minimise or prevent environmental damage.
1 and 2 District Plan Change 23 - Central Area Noise Insulation Rules (Operative 25 June 2004)
