NO to billboard ban!

Article here

As most readers here would know, the ACC is planning to ban all billboards from Central Auckland. From the article:

"The idea was to remove giant pictures such as All Black Dan Carter in underwear so people could appreciate buildings, heritage and natural landscape instead.

It was argued that the ban would make Auckland an 'international city'."

As we can see, not only are the reasons for the ban nonsense, the ban is immoral and makes no allowance for property rights.

It is the owner's right to put up billboards, not the council's. What would the incentive be to put up a billboard over a historic building, for instance, be anyway? Even if a billboard was put up over a historic building, the public would not be pleased (we have seen that countless times before) and, as it is historic, lower the property value.

On the over hand, billboards can make for excellent high-tech public squares. Just look at New York's Time's Square or London's Picadilly Circus. Where would they be if they didn't have their billboards to give them a modern-day feel? They'd be very average squares, I can tell you that.

So why should Auckland's CBD be prevented from having that? Why should it be prevented from having a modern feel to it. Billboards could do wonders for, say, Aotea Square.

Anyway, you can email your disgust and hatred to Auckland councillors here:

mayor@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.hucker@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.abel@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.armstrong@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.boyle@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.casey@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.caughey@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.christian@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.fryer@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.hinchcliff@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.leighton@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.millar@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.milne@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.mulholland@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.northey@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.raffills@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.sefuiva@aucklandcity.govt.nz,cr.simpson@aucklandcity.govt.nz
cr.storer@aucklandcity.govt.nz, cr.walsh@aucklandcity.govt.nz