New national policy aims to protect highly productive land.

The National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land 2022 (NPS-HPL) was gazetted on 20 September 2022 and came into effect on 17 October. The NPS-HPL will impact landowners, including tangata whenua, in areas defined as highly productive land.

Highly productive land is land in:

· the General Rural Zone or Rural Production Zone; and

· within classes 1, 2, and 3 of the Land Use Capability System (LUC).

This definition will be used until Council undertakes more detailed mapping and identifies highly productive land in the Tairāwhiti Resource Management Plan (TRMP). We must do this by October 2025. You will have a chance to provide feedback on this mapping before it’s made final.

If your property contains highly productive land and you are applying for resource consent, the new policy will be considered and may influence what you can do on your property. For example, this policy could affect a subdivision.

Please contact the Council District Duty Planner to confirm if your land is subject to the NPS-HPL, and if so, what are the implications for your resource consent proposal.

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