Draft National Planning Standards have been formally notified by the Ministry for the Environment. They will have a huge impact on how plans are prepared and used by our communities. Any efforts to improve and rationalise the plan-making process are likely to be welcomed by planning practitioners, developers, NGOs and community groups. But are there potential downsides? What's the big deal about planning standards, and what have our planning experts uncovered so far? |
Background: The Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 (RLAA) was adopted by the New Zealand government in April 2017. It contains changes to 5 different Acts, one of which is the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). Some of the changes to the RMA happened immediately, and others will go live in October 2017. Next week's bite sized RMA blog post is about resource consent applications and how councils decide to notify them. So today we'll chat about what an activity status is, and how public notification of resource consents is changing.
15 March 2016
The Government is proposing some pretty fundamental changes to the Resource Management Act with its Resource Legislation Bill. Submissions just closed on this Bill and since then there has been a bit of media, much of it pointing out how the Bill proposes to limit public participation in resource management processes and decision making. There are concerns the Department of Conservation won’t be able to do their job of advocating for conservation - and we think this proposed amendment will limit the ability of other public good organisations, including community groups to make submissions and be involved in environmental decision making processes. 25 March 2014
Section 32 of the Resource Management Act provides a process for the critical evaluation of planning policy and proposals. Lucy Cooper examines whether the recent changes to s32 will improve the quality of s32 evaluations and the basis upon which we develop planning policy in New Zealand: The amendments to s32 of the Resource Management Act that were introduced recently are designed to address both procedural issues – i.e. how to do a s32 evaluation – and improve the evidential basis upon which policy development and ultimately planning decisions are made. Accompanying the changes is the Ministry for the Environment’s (MfE) interim GUIDE TO SECTION 32 OF THE RMA, a 95-page document that provides a step-by-step manual to the s32 evaluation process, from scoping and project managing the evaluation right through to the publication of the report. 10 July 2013
With the announcement of the formation of Crown Irrigation Investments Limited by Minister of Primary Industries Nathan Guy (‘IRRIGATION INVESTMENT COMPANY ESTABLISHED’ Beehive press release, 1 July 2013), the government has unashamedly put in place the machinery to tilt the regional planning playing field firmly in favour of economic development. |
Perception PlanningWe love planning and the environment and want to discuss cool stuff with you. Categories
All
|