It's not supposed to be a fantail, it is an artistic piece based around the principle symbol of the fantail i.e. the fanned out tail. If you wanna see something more like what a fantail actually looks like I would recommend the sculpture in the city centre which is quite cool;
Also the sign at Te Marua is quite cool and has a really good fantail on it;
You can also see fantails on the streetsigns there, all of Upper Hutt's main street signs have those now, the connection to the fantail is strong.
Upper Hutt is quite impressive in terms of birdlife, they even have native NZ falcons nesting in the eastern hills now, which is quite unusual (99.9% of the ones you actually see around are not the native NZ type, which is smaller, more aggressive, and much rarer). Upper Hutt also has a nice Wood Pigeon sculpture;
The sign is obviously something that's going to divide opinion and we're on opposite sides of that LG.
I can understand where you're coming from with the cost argument - much like the flag debate you can justifiably argue that the money could be better spent elsewhere. However I do believe the gains from these signs in terms of Upper Hutt's identity will be good. It was paid for in the budget under the "iconic gateway signage" funding plan, which I think is a suitable name, because it is definitely "iconic" signage rather than just signage.
The City Operations Director said this: "We're trying to put Upper Hutt on the map and make things stand out.
"It's a statement that you're entering Upper Hutt City."
I think it definitely achieves those two things and that was their stated aim. Personally I would like the lettering to stand out slightly more, and the line of sight could be better, perhaps some tree-trimming is in order. But aside from that, I think the actual design is quite nice.
As a side topic I've always really liked a couple of the other art pieces in Upper Hutt;
I was thinking this is getting a bit off-topic but actually it does qualify for 'things that rule' (in my opinion anyway!)