West Coast Angst As New SNA Rules Revealed

Friday, 19 September 2025, 3:00 pm
Article: Lois Williams - Local Democracy Reporter

West Coast council leaders have reacted with dismay to stringent new rules for Significant Natural Areas (SNAs). 

The new rules were revealed in the document set to become the Te Tai o Poutini District Plan (TTPP), which combines the region's three district plans into one. Under the rejigged plan and new biodiversity rules, Buller and Westland district councils must identify SNAs - typically lowland native forest remnants - by 2027. 

And the Grey District Council - which set aside such areas more than a decade ago - will have to redo the million-dollar process. 

Grey mayor Tania Gibson told the TTPP committee meeting yesterday her council was not having a bar of it. 

“We won’t accept anything that’s going to compromise property rights … we’re talking with the Government and they’ve said they’re going to change the RMA .. we should wait for that,” Mrs Gibson said. 

The mayors, chairs and iwi leaders who have overseen the Plan’s creation since 2020 are holding a five-day meeting to accept or reject the recommendations of independent commissioners, after hearing thousands of submissions on the proposed plan earlier this year. 

Principal Planner Lois Easton told the meeting that even though the Government had paused its National Policy Statement on Biodiversity, the TTPP still had to give effect to the West Coast Regional Policy statement (RPS). 

And that document says they must identify SNAS. 

The confused situation generated many hours of legal debate during the hearing process, Ms Easton said. 

“This is where technically, it starts to do my head in,” she said. 

“While the government pulled some clauses in its National Policy Statement and said you don’t have to implement these, they didn’t pull the criteria for SNAs.

”The national biodiversity criteria were more stringent than those used by the Grey District council years ago to set up its SNAs, Ms Easton told the meeting. 

The legal position arrived at was that the councils had to use the wider national criteria. 

For that reason the Grey District council would have to redo the entire SNA process using the new standards, while Buller and Westland would need to do it for the first time. 

The West Coast Regional Council would also have to reassess protected wetlands, which it classed as SNAs. 

“I do appreciate this is really unpalatable. But that’s the view of the Commissioners - that’s what meets the legal requirements." 

The Plan has new general rules for native vegetation clearance, to apply until the SNAs are in place:

The permitted area of vegetation clearance goes down from 5000 square metres to 2000sqm on any site that hasn't yet been assessed for SNA potential. 

In the Grey District, the clearance maximum would be 5000sqm – a nod to the council’s earlier SNA exercise. 

The plan had initially been to complete SNA mapping by June 2027, Ms Easton noted. 

“The realistic-ness of that now, when we’re in September 25, is questionable.” 

The meeting fell silent as committee members digested the lengthy list of all the things councils must do to protect biodiversity. Ngati WaeWae leader Francois Tumahi said he agreed 100 percent with the Grey District mayor. 

“I don’t know why we can’t just stick with status quo and until the (RMA) changes come and just chuck it out for now. This is going to cause so much grief for everyone.” 

Mrs Gibson said 85 percent of the West Coast land was already “locked up” and the SNAs would take that to over 90 per cent, limiting the region’s potential. 

The cost of identifying SNA’s would fall on over-burdened ratepayers, she said. 

“We’ve already done ours but we’ll have to spend another million bucks- each district will- to do it . Look at the rates now. How can we justify it?" 

Grey Deputy mayor Allan Gibson (no relation) said the rules were "ridiculous". 

Cr Brett Cummings suggested changing the Regional Policy Statement, which was out of date.

Westland mayor Helen Lash said it was clear no one around the table supported the new biodiversity rules. 

“We’ve just gone through this situation with Local Water Done Well - if you don’t sign up there’s a gun to your head. That should not be the political environment we’re working in.” 

But Buller mayor Jamie Cleine warned that opposing the rules could backfire- which the Regional Council had already found to its cost. 

“They held the line on wetland rules they thought were better for the West Coast and in the end the (Environment Court) Judge made a decision in line with the law and it was a lot worse outcome.”

Because Buller had not been through the SNAs process, developers were having to jump through multiple hoops to gain resource consent, Mr Cleine said. 

“Currently in Buller everything is an SNA until we prove it's not. So that’s not helpful either. “ 

Ms Easton noted all the infrastructure submitters at the hearings had wanted SNAs identified as soon as possible. 

”It is a really difficult situation; we know it affects land values and what you can do on your land, so by not identifying them we benefit a certain class of landowners but put more restrictive rules across everyone else.” 

The SNA policy was always going to be the sticking point in the TTPP, but legally the committee could not simply reject it and substitute rules more to its liking, she said. 

“Your only options are to say 'No we don’t accept this' and send it back for a re-hearing or we prepare a plan change. “ 

Regional Councilchair Peter Haddock is pinning his hopes on a new, less restrictive National Policy Statement that he believes will over-ride the West Coast one. 

“But the Plan as a whole – there’s so much good stuff in there…we need to hear the whole thing out.”

 The meeting continues today [Friday] and resumes after the weekend until Wednesday. 

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

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