Newcomers seek to impose unrealistic or urban-based amenity standards on what is essentially a rural production zone. Those engaged in these existing, anticipated and lawfully established activities suffer as a result. With the trend towards rural residential living, reverse sensitivity is an increasingly critical risk to agriculture.
Farming requirements and weather conditions mean it's not always possible to avoid some level of nuisance, even if you follow best-industry practices.
In an ideal world, the effects of an activity are contained within that property's boundaries. In practice that's not always possible. Like when you've just weaned the lambs/calves and they keep up a racket for two days. In such cases (generally intermittent and temporary), the district plan should clearly allow these effects. After all, they're not unreasonable or unexpected in a rural zone.
My favourite example of reverse sensitivity involves a vineyard owner whose neighbour rang every autumn to complain that fallen leaves were blowing into his garden.
But the potential effect of cumulative complaints on a farming business is anything but funny.
Good planning rules help manage reverse sensitivity, including minimum allotment sizes to control housing density and "no complaints" covenants on new developments. Thankfully, most New Zealanders have a basic knowledge of farming life.
And most farmers bend over backwards to avoid annoying the neighbours. So the old maxim of "live and let live" is perhaps just as useful.
