The quiet lines
The district plan’s noise map, 21 overlays where the plan hears the ground: the airport’s air-noise contours, the engine-testing hum, Ruapuna’s boundaries, the precincts where loud is allowed, the zones where walls must be thick, and the bird-strike buffers that guard the flight path.
Where the plan hears the ground
Indigo washes for the airport’s contours and the engine-testing hum, violet for the precincts where loud is allowed, brown for Ruapuna’s boundaries, slate for the insulation zones, and the widest pale rings for the bird-strike buffers. Hover any area for its name. A point’s own answer is at /before.
The standings
Each overlay is a different instrument, the contours modelled from the flight path, the precincts zoned for their night, the buffers drawn for the birds a plane can meet.
The air-noise contours
Christchurch Airport’s reach, the 50 dB wash, the 55 dB boundary that bites, and the composite core.
The engine-testing hum
Where engines run up on the ground, the contours around the testing pads.
The track’s boundaries
Ruapuna’s inner and outer noise boundaries, the loud the plan has already agreed to.
The precincts, loud and quiet
The central city’s graded night: Category 1 where entertainment may be loud, 2 and 3 the quieter ground.
The insulation zones
Where the loud is expected enough that the walls must answer it, the arena precinct’s inner and outer zones.
The bird-strike buffers
The airport’s other reach, 3 km and 8 km rings where bird-drawing works face the rules.
The suburbs under the quiet lines
By share of outline inside any noise overlay, read from a sampled join, so a sliver still counts. The airport’s share is counted separately on each suburb’s page.
- Avonhead100% under noise overlays · 43% inside the airport’s contours
- Bishopdale100% under noise overlays
- Broomfield100% under noise overlays
- Bryndwr100% under noise overlays
- Burnside100% under noise overlays · 35% inside the airport’s contours
- Casebrook100% under noise overlays · 4% inside the airport’s contours
- Christchurch Airport100% under noise overlays · 100% inside the airport’s contours
- Fendalton100% under noise overlays · 1% inside the airport’s contours
- Harewood100% under noise overlays · 95% inside the airport’s contours
- Hei Hei100% under noise overlays
Questions, answered briefly
The district plan’s noise overlays, 21 mapped areas covering 44,250 hectares before overlaps. Where the other overlays answer what the ground looks like or what stands on it, these answer what the air over it sounds like, and who has to live with that.
Christchurch Airport’s air-noise contours, 13,153 hectares under them, are the plan’s most famous line: inside the 55 dB Ldn contour, new homes need sound insulation and whole kinds of development stop. It is why the suburbs stop where the flight path begins, and why the airport can run all night.
The central-city precincts are graded for loud: Category 1 is where entertainment and hospitality may be loud, Categories 2 and 3 the quieter ground around them. The airport shapes stack, the outer 50 dB wash, the 55 dB boundary that bites, the composite core. Ruapuna carries its own inner and outer boundaries; the arena precinct carries insulation zones where walls must be thick.
The bird-strike buffers are the airport’s other reach, 3 km and 8 km rings where landfills, wetlands and other bird-drawing works face the plan’s rules. Same flight path, different instrument.
No, the contours are modelled planning lines, mostly computed from flight paths and engine testing, not metered tonight’s noise. They mark where the plan’s rules apply, not what the air actually holds.
The record behind this
Christchurch City Council’s open data, the DistrictPlanB service’s noise overlays: the airport’s air-noise contours, the aircraft engine-testing noise contours, Ruapuna’s motor-sport noise boundaries, the central-city entertainment precinct categories, the CMUA noise-insulation zones, and the bird-strike mitigation buffers. Contours are modelled planning lines, where the rules bite, not a meter’s reading of tonight. The ground’s other hearings are at /zones and /matters.
This page as markdown: /noise.md · the record as data: /noise.json · /noise.geojson.