Today, shortly after 1pm, New Zealanders will get their first look at the Government’s radical overhaul of the resource management laws, cutting the number of consents required by 40-50%.
The reforms, led by RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and supported by Act’s Simon Court, will see the 34-year-old RMA replaced with two laws, one focused on planning (The Planning Act), and another focused on protecting the environment (the Natural Environment Act).
This planning-environment split, which is similar to systems in Scotland, South Australia, and Queensland, has been popular with the National Party since planning spokeswoman Judith Collins proposed it back in 2019.
As the Herald has previously reported, the number of zones will be dramatically reduced. Currently, the Government says there are 1175 different kinds of zone in New Zealand.
This creates complexity for developers who have to adapt and understand each area’s zoning peculiarities.
Japan uses a system of standardised zoning, which means there are just 13 types of zone. The Government’s reforms will reduce the number of zones to a figure in the 10s.
The number of plans will be reduced too, from more than 100 now to about 17 spatial plans under the new system. Each plan will be based on a region.
Each territorial authority will then have its plans incorporated into the new system as an individual chapter of the broader plan.
The plans will identify future corridors for infrastructure growth.
The changes are likely to cut the number of consents required by 40-50%.
This is done in part by sharpening the focus of the regime on externalities - an economic principle that looks at the unintended effects of an economic transaction on a third party.
In plain English, that means that if someone were to put a small factory on their back section, sending smoke billowing out over their neighbours, it would create a strong negative externality and would need some serious consenting in the unlikely event it were to go ahead.
If, however, someone wanted to change the internal configuration of their apartment in a way that did not disrupt their neighbours, there is no negative externality, and therefore, under these rules, no consent would be required.
Councils will transition to the new system over a period of three years.
With the focus now firmly on regional spatial planning, the changes will add further impetus to the Government’s push for councils to amalgamate into larger unitary authorities much like the Auckland super city.
The Government has asked mayors to consider this over the next two years as part of the local government reforms.
The Government has trod a long road to these reforms with a colourful cast of characters.
In the late 1980s, a young lawyer with an expertise in Māori law was brought on by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the RMA’s chief author to lend his “Māoritanga expertise”, as Palmer put it in his memoir, Reform.
That lawyer’s name was Shane Jones and this week he’ll cast his vote to repeal that law, in no small part because of perceived over-reach of the RMA’s approach to Te Tiriti.
In 2008, the National Party under John Key campaigned on large-scale RMA reform. Minor changes were made, but on the whole, the Key-English Governments failed to significantly change the law.
The last Labour Government reviewed the RMA in 2019-2020 (one of the lawyers who participated in the review, Rachel Brooking, is now a Labour MP).
That review recommended the Government repeal the RMA and replace it with two laws (or three, if you include a related climate change law).
The two laws were different to the ones Bishop is proposing. One was a Spatial Planning Act and another was a Natural and Built Environments Act.
Much like the coalition’s reforms, it would have reduced the number of plans required from more than 100 to just 16, getting rid of much unnecessary duplication.
Environment Minister David Parker managed to get both bills passed into law, and Labour was in the decade-long process of switching to the new system when it was voted out at the last election.
On coming into Government, National repealed Labour’s reforms and disinterred the original RMA, promising its reforms would be better than what Labour proposed and worth waiting for.
Today, New Zealanders get to judge National on that promise.
The Government intends to put its best foot forward by arguing that its reforms will boost economic growth.
It has commissioned economics agency Infometrics to calculate what the reforms will mean for the economy.
Expect ministers to make a lot of that very large number.
The Government has moved at an uncharacteristically slow pace with the reforms. The shape of the reforms was announced in March this year. Opposition parties have been consulted on parts of the changes.
Environmental groups, already outraged at the Government’s fast-track reforms, have not been happy with what they’ve been hearing.
On Monday, Greenpeace NZ warned they understood the new laws would include a “regulatory takings” clause, which could allow companies to claim compensation if a council introduced a rule to limit environmental harm.
Greenpeace campaigner Genevieve Toop wondered what NZ First thought of the clause, given the party’s anguished position on the Act Party’s Regulatory Standards Act, a law which includes vaguely similar provisions relating to regulation.
“New Zealanders should never be expected to pay financial compensation to the very corporations causing the damage to their communities,” Toop said.
If correct, those provisions are likely to be attacked intensely by the opposition.