Hundreds of Maungaraki residents in Lower Hutt have signed a petition to get a convicted child sex offender moved out of their suburb.
The 61-year-old paedophile is a recidivist offender who now requires electronic monitoring and 24-hour supervision.
Business owner Melissa Morris says they want him moved to prison grounds.
"The conditions to get him moved actually more onto prison grounds, because we can move him out of here in Maungaraki, but he just ends up going somewhere else, into a neighbourhood - and they don't want him, either," she said.
"Nobody wants this guy near them."
Ms Morris says he's too close to the local school and they want him moved onto prison grounds.
"The community of children that are around where our ones are particularly living - there's just too many children there," she said.
"Corrections have got no regard for those children at all, and it's just wrong that they've placed him up there in our neighbourhood."
Lower Hutt Mayor Ray Wallace is meeting with Corrections on Thursday in the hope of getting the man relocated.
He said the man's residence was "unsuitable" for a number of reasons, adding that there was "a lot of disbelief and shock" from the Maungaraki community that he had been placed there.
"One, it overlooks a neighbour's; two, its proximity to neighbours with young children and proximity to schools."
The offender's residence is within a kilometre of a school, but Corrections says it's fine because it's more than a kilometre by road.
He isn't allowed to leave his property without being accompanied by another person.
Mr Wallace acknowledged the need for the man to live somewhere and to receive support to rehabilitate - just not where he's been placed.
If the man reoffends, he will be sent to prison indefinitely.
Newshub.
