February 12, 2013

Regional Policy Statement review due to get under way

A review of a key regional planning document which sets the direction for the management of Otago’s natural and physical resources is due to start soon.

The Otago Regional Council’s policy and submissions committee has recommended the full council approve a process for the review of the Regional Policy Statement involving iwi and city and district councils.

Committee chairman Cr Michael Deaker said this collaborative process would ensure that the RPS and regional and district plans took an integrated approach to addressing the region’s key resource management issues.

These included transport, coastal access and development, landscape, water management, natural hazards, and urban management.

“The RPS provides an overview of the region’s resource management issues and sets out the policies and methods needed to achieve an integrated approach to dealing with those issues,” Cr Deaker said.

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“Regional and district plans must give effect to the RPS, which is why a collaborative process is crucial for its development,” he said.

Indicative dates for the completion of key parts of the process include:

· Collaborative process established (by April 30 this year)

· Consultation on draft RPS (completed by August 31 2014);

· Notification of the reviewed RPS and call for submissions and further submissions (by December 31 2014)

· Hearing of submissions (by March 31 2015)

· Decisions made on reviewed RPS (completed by June 30 2015).

ends

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Gordon Campbell: On Failures Of Care For Those With Mental Disabilities

Hard to imagine a more disturbing insight into the treatment of the vulnerable than the Health Ministry report on Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau. The Ministry has found that the country’s only kaupapa Maori intellectual disability residential care provider has been “seriously dysfunctional.”

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