May RMA Newsletter
Why an RMA newsletter?
Whether we like it or not, the Resource Management Act (RMA) impacts on so many parts of our lives. It affects where we can build, how big we can build, how we divide our land, what development rights we have, how we can use our land and what we can do in relation to soils, water and air. Just about everything in our physical and natural environment is affected by the RMA in some sort of way. And yet, in spite of being around for nearly 30 years, it is still largely misunderstood and most people do not under even understand the basic principles of this important piece of legislation that affects so much of lives and environment around us. The aim of this newsletter is to keep you up to date with the latest news and development relating to the RMA, how it is evolving and how might that influence our daily life and going forward in to the future.
1. Consenting needs to speed up. April 18 2020.
The pressure is on Councils to deliver in terms of processing of resource consents. In an article by Thomas Coughlan Stuff on April 18, the Environment Minister David Parker stated: “Councils should exercise their discretion wisely to allow supermarkets to keep operating outside of the hours their consents allow”. He also stated that “Councils should act quickly to address a backlog of consents so that there was construction work ready for when Covid-19 restrictions were relaxed.” Source: Stuff April 18 Thomas Coughlan: Coronavirus: David Parker tells councils to keep consenting during Covid-19 crisis.
Comments: Most supermarkets are in commercially zoned areas, that usually allow 24 hour trading anyway so it is unlikely that they will need to alter the rules, unless they are governed by a specific resource consent restrictions. The nationwide lockdown should allow most Councils to catch up with their consent workloads, many of which have had a huge backlog and have relied on consultants to deal with an overflow of consents over the past few years. The Lockdown should allow many Council’s to catch up with their backlog, though it should be noted, that because many consents are now submitted online, it is likely that there will be consent applications still being submitted electronically during the lockdown period.
2. Comprehensive Overhaul of the RMA announced. 24 July 2019.
In July 2019 the Government announced a comprehensive review of the Resource Management Act, the first comprehensive review of the Act in 30 years. The Environment Minister David Parker in announcing the review stated “the country’s main law managing built and natural environments was not working as well as intended.” He also stated “ Our aim is to produce a revamped law fit for purpose in the 21st century that will cut complexity and cots while better protecting our environment.”. Time will tell how comprehensive a change will come to the RMA. Successive governments have introduced amendments to the Act, meaning that the Act is more than twice its original length and even the Environment Minister acknowledging that it was “unwieldy to interpret, and hampering its effective implementation.” After 25 years of working with the RMA my main criticisms are:
· The Act seems to assume we all live in a natural wilderness environment, when in fact most us live in a highly modified urban environment.
· The Act seems to favour the “status quo” with an emphasis on maintaining and retaining the existing amenity, making it difficult to introduce new developments that might positively change that existing amenity.
· The Act does not deal with spatial planning well, that is the extent of urban form and provision of land for growth. When the Act first came out in 1991 , traditional town planning was thrown out and the emphasis was instead on managing adverse effects, rather than traditional structure planning which had allowed for a more planned approach to development. We are now suffering the consequences of this.
· The emphasis on applicants having to solely assess the effects on the environment ( ie an AEE) rather than a pragmatic assessment by a Council Planner has resulted in consent applications, even for seemingly simple developments becoming larger and more expensive with not a lot of environment benefit. This has become evident since the introduction of the Resource Management Amendment Act (RMAA) 2013, which vastly expanded the 4th Schedule of the Act which sets out what needed to be included in an AEE and gave Council greater powers under Section 88 to return applications that did not meet those criteria.
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/comprehensive-overhaul-rma
3. Tasman District Council to review TRMP to be replaced by the TEP.
Twenty four years after it was first notified in April 1996, Tasman District Council is finally announcing a full comprehensive review of the Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) and will result in a totally new plan called the Tasman Environment Plan (TEP) being introduced that will eventually replace the current TRMP. Up until now there have been numerous variations to the plan ( 69 at the last count!) and this should entail a complete review on all the zonings, rules and policies and objectives that currently in the TRMP at present. This is a long term project that according to Council will take at least 6 years with the new TEP not being notified until at least 2024. Further information on the TRMP review is available by following the link to the TDC website below.
https://www.tasman.govt.nz/my-council/projects/tasman-environment-plan/
4. National promises to replace and repeal the RMA: Dec 16, 2019
In December last year the National party announced that it would replace and repeal the RMA if it was elected as Government. In article by Henry Cooke in Stuff on December 16 2019, the party’s Planning spokesperson Judith Collins announced that “the party would repeal the RMA, New Zealand’s main planning law, and replaced it with transitional legislation while it worked out a longer term “development friendly” solution that provided predictable outcomes.” The article went on say…”This could include splitting the Act into two parts: one dealing with building planning and another with the environment..”
Comments: It remains to be seen how this will work out. I agree that for many simple planning applications, there are too many compulsory requirements that have to be included, such as an assessment against policies and objectives in the District Plan, the Part 2 of the Act ( ie matters of national importance such as significant landscapes). When you are dealing with a simple building extension, these things are totally unnecessary, yet at present under the Act, if it needs a resource consent, no matter how small, these matters need to be considered in the application, and what’s more Council is obliged to return the application under Sec 88 even if it is obvious that the effects are no more than minor! The irony here is that much of the unnecessary requirements for resource consent applications stem from the Resource Management Amendment 2013, that the National government introduced, that vastly extended the 4th schedule of the Act that sets out the what need to be included in an Assessment of Effects. When I first started working with Tasman District Council back in 1996, some of the old transitional Plans allowed for side yard encroachments to be approved “at the discretion of the Council Building Inspector!” No planning consent required! Not a lot of documentation involved either.
I totally agree there needs to be simple planning pathway for consents that might breach a particular rule, with very little adverse effects on the environment that can be processed quickly and efficiently in a pragmatic way, without having to include an assessment of matters that have got nothing to do with the application.
A national set of bulk and location standards for building development is required that allows for consents, within defined parameters, without the need for all the information that is normally required and without the need for neighbours consent. This would encompass would normally be controlled activity and restricted discretionary consents, leaving the traditional consent process ( ie full AEE) for the truly discretionary and non-complying activities.
Overhauling or the repealing and replacing the RMA is going to be a huge process for any government particularly in an MMP environment, but there does seem to be widespread agreement on both sides of the house that radical changes are needed to the RMA are needed if we are going affordable development in New Zealand. Watch this space.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/118223167/national-promises-to-repeal-and-replace-rma
Mark Morris 22 May 2010
