Iwi wants more time for landfill feedback
Request for ‘everybody to have a say’
Northland iwi Nga¯ti Wha¯tua says it’s a “major disappointment” that no extension was given for feedback on the Dome Valley landfill plan, despite consultation starting on the first day of lockdown.
But Auckland Council says it will accept and support late submissions.
On the first day of alert level 4, March 26, Auckland Council publicly notified a resource consent application by Waste Management New Zealand (WMNZ) to develop the new landfill on 1020ha of farm and forestry land in Dome Valley, on the outskirts of the Northland region.
In a separate process council also notified a Private Plan Change application.
Submissions closed yesterday but Te Ru¯nanga o Nga¯ti Wha¯tua chief executive Alan Riwaka said the iwi wanted the consultation period pushed out another month.
“Trying to force these things through while everybody is in Covid19 is not good,” he said.
“We ourselves have just turned our minds to Dome Valley having all of our resources focused in on supporting all our people ”
Ian Smallburn, general manager of resource consents at Auckland Council, agreed the timing of public notification for the landfill proposal was “very unfortunate” but said it was not intentional.
The notifications of start date and arrangements were set well before the lockdown and once notification was under way, Auckland Council could not stop the process under the Resource Management Act.
Council could not extend submission periods for resource consent applications by more than 40 working days and only the applicant, in this case WMNZ, could request an extension to the notification process.
On March 31 the council asked WMNZ to place the resource consent application and private plan change request on hold until alert level 4 and 3 had lifted. WMNZ had said it wished to continue with the planned submission period.
“We know this is disappointing to some; however, council has made every effort to ensure those who wanted to make a submission have been able to, by making all information available online,” Smallburn said.
“WMNZ also agreed to courier hard copies or electronic copies to people with no, or limited computer access.”
Council had received more than 500 submissions by Monday evening and expected more.
A spokeswoman for WMNZ said it carefully monitored what impact Covid-19 may have had on submissions and believed the number received so far reflected the high level of public awareness.
“We note that the community has had access to the resource consent application documents electronically and in council libraries for a year, since May 2019.” she said.
She said WMNZ had discussed the submission period with Auckland Council several times and confirmed in January that the submission period would be doubled from the normal 20 working days to 40 days.
“We then also confirmed with council that we generally wouldn’t oppose any late submissions being accepted by the hearing panel, in case the Covid-19 level 4 restrictions continued for many months and impacted anyone being able to submit by the deadline.”
Riwaka said it was hard for him to respond without seeing the full comments from WMNZ and council, but the iwi — which has concerns about the environmental impact of the landfill — were talking about the formal process, which did not start last year.
“We see it as a small ask to make sure everybody has a say,” he said.