"From today, the Civil Aviation Authority will strictly police regulations that ban helicopters from flying over built-up areas unless they can land safely during an engine failure."
The Rule doesn't state you have to be able to "land safely", it requires that you don't cause injury or damage to a 3rd party. The 3rd party being persons,or persons property, external to the helicopter.
Yes it's good practice to approach/depart over terrain that could allow an EOL. But how far do we take this, single engine helicopters operating in New Zealand will always be operating over terrain (Hostile Terrain) that will not allow a "Safe Landing" after a power failure. What the rule is doing is forcing some operators to conduct some very strange departure/arrival procedures, which they believe means they will only "end-up" on their helipads - or away from the built up area. This often means that the helicopter will spend an extended period inside the "avoid curve". This is hardy furthering "flight safety", but is probably not a surprising response in light of the fact that our CAA is determined not to enter into any discussion about adjusting the rule. If the rule was adjusted along the lines of " an operator must ensure that the approach or departure to/from a heliport located within a built up area, should be planned to minimize risk to the general public. With a note that in some cases the heliport will be considered unsuitable for non performance class 1 aircraft." With this in place certain heliports would end up " off limits" to singles, but others where it's only a few seconds of flight in which there may be exposure to 3rd party could be utilized. We all know engine failure is extremely unlikely for those few seconds of exposure and no more than another component failure.