Marlborough Is Zoned For Growth, Says Mayor In Face Of RMA Reforms

Friday, 4 July 2025, 3:03 pm
Article: Kira Carrington - Local Democracy Reporter

Marlborough’s mayor says the council is well on its way to meeting housing growth targets for the next 30 years, even without new Resource Management Act reforms.

Housing and Resource Management Act (RMA) reform minister Chris Bishop announced on June 18 that amendments to the RMA to allow central government to override council district plans if they are deemed to constrain economic development.

“Local government has been one of the largest barriers to housing growth in New Zealand,” Bishop said. “Some council planning departments are basically a law unto themselves.”

Marlborough mayor Nadine Taylor said she did not believe her council was one that Bishop was speaking to directly, as staff were actively working to meet a growing housing demand.

“We've got the zoning in place for the [next 10 years], and certainly the planning in place for 30 years, and we're actively working to fill the gap.”

Council environmental policy manager Pere Hawes agreed, saying the Government was more focused on councils ranked as tier one and two in the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which were urban centres and high-growth provincial centres.

Blenheim was tier three, which covered all other areas.

Hawes said the council was focused on expanding urban residential zoning to accommodate the next 30 years of growth, and was working with developers to encourage them to develop the land.

“We have always monitored the supply of land for housing versus the demand for land for housing,” Hawes said.

The council’s Urban Development Monitoring data was publicly available in an interactive real-time dashboard on the council website, he said.

Hawes said the council had zoned enough residential land for at least the next 10 years.

The council’s 2021 Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment said the region was still 900 dwellings short of the Government’s mandated 30 years of housing growth.

But Hawes said there was good news on that front. A block of land named Kerepi, on Blenheim’s northern edge, east of Rose Manor, was also rezoned urban residential in February, after consultation and hearings last year. The developer lodged a subdivision consent application in June.

“That provides roughly 160 lots, and that’s eating into that 900,” Hawes said.

Taylor said she was also looking for opportunities to eat into the housing shortfall.

“I met with a developer last week.

“It’s a small development, it’s under 100 [houses], but the way you eat into 900 in Marlborough is probably developments of 100 or 200 at a time.”

Hawes said the real work lay in encouraging developers to build new homes.

“We can zone land, but we can't make the landowners develop it.

“There's a lack of a lever to initiate the development.

“Maybe that there's an issue that Government will look at as part of the [RMA] reform process.”

Bishop planned to introduce new resource consent laws to Parliament, the Natural Environment Act and the Planning Act, at the end of this year.

LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.

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