Developers respond to RMA reform
Change a decade in the making
Developers could have more certainty about getting consent to do projects in different areas of New Zealand as a result of two new laws planned to replace the Resource Management Act, a specialist says.
But another expert says there is no need to reform the RMA, it had been abused and misused and he doesn’t see any need for the big change.
Kate Storer, a Berry Simons lawyer who specialises in resource management and planning, said the replacements could speed up consenting processes compared to what they are now.
“It’s about time. We’ve been waiting years for this. Previous governments have tried and not succeeded,” Storer said of the laws
planned: the National and Built Environments Act, which is the main replacement, and the Spatial Planning Act.
Environment Minister David Parker is leading the reforms and has previously said the RMA had failed at two of its key tasks: allowing development and protecting the environment. The Government unveiled its replacement to the RMA yesterday, fulfilling a promise that’s been in the works for more than a decade.
Storer said: “The intention is to have much more certainty in terms of the type of development that is
appropriate in different areas of New Zealand and desired in each location upfront. There will be national and regional frameworks which will spell out what types of developments are being encouraged in a particular area.”
Getting more houses in places like Auckland and Queenstown could be one priority, she said.
“We have plans for each area now via regional and district plans from councils.
“There are around 100 of those at the moment. Under this new system, there will be only 15 plans because there will only be one for each region — not as many as before. These 15 plans will also be much more consistent, making it easier for developers potentially to interpret them,” she said.
Berry Simons had lodged submissions on the two new laws, she said.
“We’ll be looking in detail at what’s proposed because the devil is always in the detail.”
Asked about problems, Storer said: “For me, the main issue is the content of the national planning framework. This gives the Government an awful lot of responsibility to prepare the documents, particularly the national planning framework. We hope the Government is getting on with that already. The document is likely to be contentious.”
One of the main problems with the RMA was that the Government was meant to introduce directives to reconcile competing interests but didn’t do enough, she said.
Richard Brabant, who has 40 years of experience in environmental law, said there had been nothing wrong with the RMA, “only the way it got abused and misused”. He cited a speech by ex-mp Simon Upton defending that law.
The law was a world leader when it was brought in, Brabant said.
“Politically it became impossible to save the RMA because both sides of the political spectrum had been persuaded that the RMA was responsible for delays and cost when in actual fact it’s been the way it’s been applied and administered.
“The way the act was developed, the district plans were supposed to be very simply documents based on an approach that said what we’re concerned about is the effects of activities on the environment,” Brabant said.
“Councils had been overly prescriptive in their district plans and under the RMA, we were meant to move away from a prescriptive plan into dealing with effects-based plans”.
The Environmental Defence Society welcomed the two new laws, saying they had long been in the making, and a result of a large and impressive collective effort in Government.