‘Ours has got no name’: Residents’ quest to put their road on the map
Friday, 5 September 2025
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The problem
Marlene Hudd was one of more than 100 people who wrote to us the day we launched Solving stuff.
She said her street, Kohekohe Lane in Karaka, didn’t appear on Google Maps and she thought “emergency vehicles have no way of finding us”. (We’ll get back to that.)
Hudd and her husband have lived at Karaka Lifestyle Estate, a relatively new retirement village in Auckland, for about two years.
During that time, their address has been the main address of the village - 329 Bremner Rd - and their villa number.
But, she told us, residents were told at a recent meeting that street names had been assigned and they should start using their proper addresses.
Emergency services had also been informed of the change.
But when Hudd checked Google Maps, she could see all the surrounding street names - Tii Lane, Maanuka Ave, Wharariki Court - but her street, Kohekohe Lane, was missing.
“Ours has got no name on it.”
And when you Google Kohekohe Lane, it instead suggested Kohekohe St in New Lynn, an entirely different part of Auckland.
Their problem
Hudd said she and her husband Bob had St John medical alarms. She worried that in an emergency, the ambulance wouldn’t know where to go.
“They need to know where to find us and if they put Kohekohe Lane into Google Maps, it just doesn’t exist.
“If we phone St John and we need something here quickly, we can tell them [our villa number] but they wouldn’t have a clue where that is because all that signage in the village is gone and we’ve just got our street numbers on our garage doors.”
She said there were four other villas and five apartments on the lane.
“We’re all in the same age and health limits, it could be important, not just for us.
“To us, it’s vitally important.”
In the evening following our chat, Bob had a fall. Had neighbours been unable to help, Hudd said she would have needed to call an ambulance.
“This is exactly the situation we didn’t want.”
How does a road get its name?
To try and solve Hudd’s dilemma, I first needed to understand how roads are named and whose responsibility it is to pass that information on to Google Maps.
According to Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), the naming of roads and assigning of property numbers is a job for local councils.
In Auckland, roads are given names in line with the Auckland Council Road Naming Guidelines, in consultation with the community and mana whenua.
I asked Auckland Transport what the deal was with Kohekohe Lane and was informed that because of its location within the Karaka Lifestyle Village, it was deemed a private road.
Had it been a public road, Auckland Council would have sent its name and legal survey plans to LINZ to be recorded on the national record of official road names.
My next port of call was to Karaka Pines Villages, which operated the retirement village.
Village operations manager Deborah Paget said she had been working with the council and iwi on the village’s street names, which had been a lengthy process spanning two to three years.
As for why Kohekohe Lane had yet to appear on Google Maps, unlike the other roads in the village, Paget said she still had to process the name of the street with LINZ.
“I can’t force Google to put something on their maps that isn’t legally there.”
Paget was in the middle of preparing annual general meetings for the retirement villages and said she wouldn’t get to LINZ until next week.
In the meantime, a map had been put up at the village to show emergency services where to go.
Getting Kohekohe Lane on the map
Next, we asked LINZ about the status of Kohekohe Lane.
Before we go on, we’ve since learned, the good news for Hudd is that LINZ data is used by emergency services for their dispatch systems and maps, meaning emergency services will be able to find the couple should they call for help.
Cotality, which also supplies police, Fire and Emergency NZ, Hato Hone St John and NEMA with data, also reached out to confirm Kohekohe Lane was in its system and sent us a screenshot to put Hudd’s mind at ease.
Problem solved then.
But one question is still valid. Why doesn’t Google name my street?
Principal geospatial specialist of data Trent Gulliver said the road was added to its national addressing database in November 2021.
“It’s been published to the LINZ Data Service, where anyone can freely access and download our data.”
That was almost four years ago. So why is Kohekohe Lane still not on Google Maps?
“While LINZ doesn’t send data directly to Google or influence its update cycle, Google is able to access publicly available data, including ours.
“If a street name isn’t appearing on Google Maps, residents or property owners can request an update directly through Google’s map feedback tools.”
A quick Google search revealed a tool to “add a missing place” to maps, however this appeared to be targeted at people wanting to add their business, opening hours and contact details. Hudd tried this twice, both requests were rejected.
I asked Google how one might go about adding a street, and whether requests needed to come from local authorities or if every Tom, Dick and Harry could make a submission.
A spokesperson replied with a link to a support page with instructions to “add or edit info about a place”, however for the instructions to work, the place needed to already exist. The spokesperson did not respond to my other questions.
After some more Googling, I found instructions on how to “add or fix a road in Google Maps”.
This page instructed me to zoom in on the area with the missing street name and click the hamburger menu button (three horizontal lines, stacked) at the top left of the page.
From here, you can select “edit the map” and “add or fix a road”. It then invites you to select the stretch of road, which you can then add its name or edit other details, such as whether the road is private or permanently closed.
Hudd gave this a go on Wednesday, the submission of which is still pending.
“Edits are checked for accuracy by our moderation system before being published. Timelines can vary,” Google said in an email about her request.
As of Thursday morning, Kohekohe Lane was yet to appear on the map.
This story has been updated to be clear that the emergency services use LINZ and other data.
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