End In Sight For West Coast's Combined Plan - As Costs Climb

Tuesday, 26 August 2025, 3:52 pm
Article: Lois Williams - Local Democracy Reporter

The cost of creating a combined District Plan for the West Coast now sits at just under $8 million - with two weeks to go before independent commissioners complete their work on it. 

But the costs to Coast ratepayers will not stop there, councils have been warned. 

The hearings panel that heard the hundreds of submissions on the Tai o Poutini Plan is due to release its Decisions Report by September 8. 

And the TTPP committee, made up of councils and iwi that has overseen the process since 2019, is in for a gruelling five days of workshops in September to decide if it will accept the panel’s recommendations. 

At today’s TTPP meeting, lawyer Lucy de Latour stepped the committee through the options available to them. 

Accepting the panel’s report in full would be the normal, or orthodox approach, and would give the Plan immediate legal effect, she said. 

It would ensure the panel’s hard work in hearing all the submitters was taken into account- and would also be the most cost-effective option. 

The TTPP committee also had the choice of accepting some recommendations in part and rejecting others - but it could not substitute its own preferred rules, Ms de Latour reminded members. 

Rejecting the panel’s report in part or in full would also expose the councils to legal risk since they had not heard all the evidence. 

It would also have serious cost implications. 

The TTPP committee would be forced to appoint a new independent panel and rehear all the submissions. 

That would likely trigger an appeal to the High Court for a judicial review, by submitters who would be facing the costs of repeating the whole process. 

In her financial report, TTPP project manager Jo Armstrong said Hearing Commissioner costs now stood at $1.6 million, and since July 2019, expenditure on consultant planners and contractors had been $2.5 million. 

Total expenditure on the TTPP over six years now stood at $7,939,393, and West Coast ratepayers had paid about $3.3 million of that so far. 

The rest had been raised as loans by the Regional Council, after it was directed to fund the plan by the Government in 2019. 

TTPP committee members were keen to know how much more hurt ratepayers were in for. 

“Given the TTP committee appointed a panel of experts to hear the submissions, what happens if there’s an appeal…with costs?” WCRC chair Peter Haddock asked. 

Ms de Latour said the Environment Court did not generally award costs, and appellants had to fund their own legal expenses. 

Defence costs would fall on the councils via the TTPP committee, as respondent, she confirmed. Several appeals could be expected, but they would go through a mediation process rather than straight to court. 

“That enables everyone to get in a room together and try to agree; the committee has an important role in setting direction and giving (staff) delegated authority on where they might go.” 

WCRC chief executive Darryl Lew said in his experience it was not possible to mount a defence to a Plan appeal for less than $50,000 and costs were usually in multiples of $100,000. 

In reply to a question from TTPP chair Rex Williams, Ms de Latour confirmed that individual councils could also appeal against a rule in the new plan. 

But that would need to be treated with care to manage conflicts of interest, given that councils were also members of the TTPP committee, she said. 

The workshops on the Commissioners’ recommendations and the fate of the TTPP will be live-streamed for the public on the WCRC’s YouTube channel starting September 18. 

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

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