Public say in development undermined by RMA Bill

Public say in development undermined by RMA Bill

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Proposed changes to the Resource Management Act will reduce the ability of the public to have their say on development and protecting nature in their areas, Forest & Bird submitted today.

The changes to the RMA also give the Minister of the Environment too much power to override planning and consent processes.

The legislation fails to consider the impacts of activities covered by the Act on climate change, the most pressing environmental issue facing the country and the world, Forest & Bird environmental lawyer Sally Gepp said.

Sally Gepp appeared today before the Local Government and Environment Select Committee hearing submissions on the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill. She said some of the proposed reforms would undermine the environmental safeguards at the heart of the Resource Management Act.

The proposed legislation would provide for new collaborative and streamlined planning processes which would restrict public submissions and appeal rights.

“Having public input into planning and consenting improves the quality of decision-making, ensuring environmental considerations are taken into account and reducing the likelihood of future conflict,” Sally Gepp said.

The changes would also allow councils to limit notification of plans to those it considers to be directly affected by the proposed plan.

“Very few plan changes will only have direct effects on people. This process would shut out consideration of effects on the environment or indirect effects on communities.”

When a council notifies a consent application, it would have to specify the adverse effects that led it to require notification. Submissions could only address those specified effects, according to the new legislation.

This means submitters raising new issues that the council had been unaware of would see their submissions struck out. This change disempowers communities and fails to utilise local knowledge.

Forest & Bird has previously submitted on irrigation projects in the Mackenzie Country which were notified because of the potential impacts on water quality. The Forest & Bird submission alerted the council to the presence of critically threatened native plants that would be destroyed by the proposal.

“Under the amended legislation, Forest & Bird would be unable to submit on the critically threatened species, yet considering these impacts is at the heart of what the RMA is supposed to do,” Sally Gepp said.

“It should be remembered that less than three percent of consents are publicly notified now, so it is difficult to argue that notifications and submissions need to be restricted even more.”

On climate change, she said it made no sense that achieving a transition to a low carbon future is recognised as an environmental priority for New Zealand but the planning and consenting process is not allowed to consider impacts on climate change.

“For example, why is the consent authority unable to impose conditions to minimise the impacts on climate change of Fonterra’s plans to build a new coal-fired boiler for its milk drying plant at Studholme in South Canterbury?” she said.

“This needs to be part of the RMA assessment. The RMA is all about sustainable management. There is no sustainable management unless New Zealand does its part to combat climate change.”

ENDS

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