The New Zealand right-leaning coalition government has announced a major overhaul of what it says are outdated planning laws that hamper the development of everything from major infrastructure projects to someone wanting to add an extension onto their house.
New laws, due to pass next year, will make the need for development an equal priority to environmental concerns.
Since 1991, anyone wanting to do anything involving land in New Zealand needed to comply with the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Passed in that year, it attempted to consolidate multiple planning laws, repealing more than 50 statutes. Since then, it has had more than 18 substantive amendments.
However, according to Infrastructure, Housing, and RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop, “It went one step too far by putting environmental protection and development under a single purpose statement that has been interpreted as putting the environment first. That made development a problem.”
The broad scope of the RMA, covering everything from trout to culture to social and economic well-being, allowed the enormous power of land use regulation to be misused, he claimed.
“In principle, the RMA was limited to effects. But as court judgments watered down the concept of effects, the RMA’s scope expanded like a balloon at a clown convention.”
He placed the blame for New Zealand’s housing crisis squarely at the feet of the Act.
“Because red tape means exclusion. Adding years and uncertainty to housing and other developments locks people out of houses. Somebody has to miss out.
“And that means more people in cars. More kids growing up in emergency motels. An entire generation of New Zealanders who think they will never own a home,” Bishop said.
Typical delays were three years for housing developments, eight years for a wind farm, and nearly a decade to extend a port, he said.
“The RMA protects the environment by resisting growth.”
The last Labour Government finally repealed it in 2023, replacing it with two new pieces of legislation but upon taking power, one of the first actions of the Coalition was to repeal those laws and resurrect the RMA as a stop-gap measure.
“These Acts were well-intentioned but badly designed and would not have delivered what was promised had they continued,” Bishop said.
The government’s proposed replacements will “remove unnecessary regulations for primary industries and barriers to investment in development and infrastructure while maintaining environmental protections,” he claimed.
One of the two new laws will focus on managing the environmental effects of activities, while the other will focus on enabling urban development and infrastructure.
Law Will Balance Environment and Development Needs
A law focused equally on the environment and development is also used in places such as Scotland.In addition to unlocking development capacity for housing and business growth, the new laws will enable the delivery of high-quality infrastructure for the future, including doubling renewable energy and primary sector growth and development, which includes mining—something that had been banned under the previous Labour government.
“The resource management system should protect the natural environment and provide property owners with assurance against unreasonable activities next door,” Bishop said.
“However [it] should not shelter businesses from competitors, allow councils to restrict land use to manage financial pressures from infrastructure, or require developers and infrastructure providers to ‘gold plate’ projects.”
Any disagreements between neighbours, property owners, and councils would first go to a “rapid, low-cost dispute resolution” mechanism.
Under Secretary for RMA Reform Simon Court said property rights would be “at the centre” of the new system.
“Rules should only restrict activity with material spillover effects on other people’s enjoyment of their own property, or on the property rights of the wider natural environment that sustains us,” he said.
“There will be a ‘double-bottom line’, so councils will be required to provide for essential human needs such as housing, food production, drinking water and sanitation within environmental limits [but] no environmental limit should make it impossible to building housing, produce food or energy, or provide transport.
“Councils will decide where, not if, development occurs in their region,” Court said. “If development cannot occur within environmental limits in one area, then development must occur in another.”
The rest of the details are yet to be worked out. Cabinet has appointed an advisory group to work with the Ministry for the Environment, and given them 10 guiding principles to consider.
