Brian Rudman: We're paying price for Govt's slap

Illustration / Peter Bromhead

Rush to get city’s new plan finished is too much even for the lawyers

In insisting the pioneering Auckland Unitary Plan be up and in business within three years of the Super City being established, the Government was making a heavy-handed ideological point. It was taking a gratuitous slap at local government and its long-winded processes.

It was all good political sport at the time, but now Auckland is having to live with the consequences.

Submitters and lawyers alike are becoming overwhelmed by the process of participating in the drafting of the city's planning guidebook, and are starting to walk away defeated.

Even planning lawyers, whose cash registers will be ringing non-stop as a result of the rewrite of the region's plan, are crying out for a breather.

At a meeting with the Auckland Unitary Plan hearings panel on October 3 attended by about 140 planning lawyers, concerns were expressed about the tight deadlines and the constraints on public involvement.

Some say it would take five years to do the job properly, rather than the two allotted.

In an email circulating among community activists, one lawyer said panel members at the meeting acknowledged the process was demanding and imperfect but they felt they had no choice but to rush matters because of the tight statutory timeframe.

One victim is heritage campaigner Helen Geary, who has walked away from what she calls a daunting, complex and unwieldy process. She says to take part you would have "to forget your day job".

As a result of just one submission, admittedly covering various issues, she had 15 emails from the panel bureaucrats, summonsing her to separate pre-hearing and mediation meetings.

Another obstacle for community groups is that in the past they have been eligible for legal aid funding for Environment Court hearings. But the Government last year ruled these hearings do not qualify.

This week, councillors refused to even investigate the possibility of extending the hearings by three months. Under the legislation, the panel can request the Environment Minister extend by up to a year the present July 22, 2016 deadline for presenting its recommendations.

This is a repeat of the first round, when in April last year councillors refused to delay the formal notification of the draft unitary plan despite widespread concerns about the rushed process and misgivings about plans for intensification.

Mayor Len Brown said: "This is the time to respect due process, be reliable and consistent and back it up."

Two months earlier, a preliminary 1854-page draft plan had been released.

Despite widespread confusion, he refused to delay the official September "notification" date.

At the time, Planning Institute chairman Bryce Julyan leapt to the defence of the planners under attack and criticised the rushed process. He wrote that "a robust process of engagement is essential to a successful plan" and this "requires time to assess and analyse the information received or given. As long as that happens, Aucklanders can expect an integrated and well-conceived plan".

The institute's "prime concern ... is the lack of time afforded to the planners at the council to undertake a thorough and professional analysis that will support such an outcome".

He called on councillors "to be brave enough" to give the planners time to assess community feedback and do their job professionally. He was ignored.

Now councillors risk making the same mistake again.

The draft plan was a rushed job, so it's even more vital that submitters be given time to highlight what they see as the shortcomings in the plan, in particular, any problems that slipped through as a result of the initial rushed process.

Once the panel issues its recommendations, our rights of appeal are limited. This is why councillors should insist that the panel and the community groups get more time to do the job properly.