RMA amendment proposals won’t work, says North Shore City

March 19, 2009

North Shore City Council has applauded the Government’s attempts to simplify and streamline the Resource Management Act, but believes many of the amendments proposed will further complicate and delay the consents process.

The council is to set out its concerns in an extensive submission and an appearance at a forthcoming Parliamentary Select Committee held to consider the Resource Management (Simplify and Streamline) Amendment Bill.

The Resource Management Act in its current form has been criticised widely by North Shore City and other local authorities, developers - and the present Government – for providing opportunities for vexatious and anti competitive objections, and for contributing to significant costs and delays to developments large and small.

North Shore City’s 19 page submission, approved at a Strategy and Finance Committee meeting this week, sets out a number of areas - legal, practical and process – that the council believes will almost certainly fail to achieve the Bill’s aims.

Committee chairman Cr Grant Gillon says that although the council supports the moves to prevent vexatious and anti competitive submissions, it is concerned about:

• Moves to drop the need for consents to cut or remove trees
• A probable increase in legal arguments about new definitions in the Bill
• The removal of the non complying activity status
• The proposal that rules proposed by plan changes won’t have legal effects during the submission and debate period – which could lead to the “gold rush” effect, where property owners rush to develop when a plan change is signalled but not legally effective
• The effect of the “clock can be stopped only once” rule will lead councils to insist that a consent is accompanied by more information from the first day of its lodgement – there is also the danger that where important information is unable to be requested that this could lead to poor decisions
• The high probability that the new legislation will further complicate and delay the consenting process.

The council’s manager of environmental policy and planning, Phill Reid, says submissions to the Select Committee opened on February 20 and close on April 3. The date for the Select Committee hearing has not yet been set.

ENDS

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