Resource Management Reform and Concrete

How do two Government bills intended to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) 1991 impact on the concrete industry? In short, certainty of future aggregate supply and stability of the national network of certified concrete plants.

Proposed reform will create uncertainty around future aggregate supply and stability of the national network of certified concrete plants.

BACK UP THE TRUCK
Most experts agree the RMA system is broken. Projects can be costly and time consuming to approve. Plans can take more than a decade to review. Consenting and planning often end up in court. The growing number of national policy statements (NPSs) have created more confusion than clarity for local councils, and for anyone else making use of the RMA.

Add to that the Government’s concern over inadequate opportunities for Māori participation, and that the cumulative effects of development degrade the environment.

The case law, and the numerous amendments to the RMA over more than 30 years, have made what was originally regarded as world-class law into a complex and cumbersome system.

GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSED SOLUTION
To resolve these problems, Environment Minister David Parker led the drafting of a Natural and Built Environment Bill and a Spatial Planning Bill, which he introduced to Parliament on 15 November 2022. On enactment, expected later this year, the RMA would be repealed.

Starting the reform process was a 2020 expert panel report led by former Court of Appeal judge Tony Randerson. This concluded replacement legislation was necessary. The Government has largely followed this report’s recommendations.

After the first reading of the Bills, Parliament’s Environment Committee opened public consultation on 800 pages of draft legislation during the Christmas holiday period, offering a tight February 2023 deadline.

KEY REFORM ELEMENTS
The new system replaces a focus on the effects of activities on the environment with “outcomes”, and strengthens planning. The intent is better management of the environment within “limits”, i.e., a minimum acceptable environmental state, or a maximum acceptable level of pressure on an environmental value, such as air, water or soil quality, or biodiversity.

The new system’s purpose is basically sustainable development, while also upholding a novel concept of “te Oranga o te Taiao”, which in practice will be for local Māori to define.

The Government’s reform objectives are environmental protection, infrastructure delivery, an effective and efficient system, more participation for iwi/Māori, and climate change action.

A National Planning Framework (NPF) will replace the current NPSs, national environmental standards and the like, and resolve trade-offs between achieving competing objectives. Note that the NPF is expected to take until 2025 to develop, with Te Waihanga NZ Infrastructure Commission leading work on an infrastructure chapter.

Regional Spatial Strategies (RSS) will provide high-level allocation of space to different outcomes, feeding into Natural and Built Environment Plans (NBE). There are fewer classes of activities – permitted, controlled, discretionary, and prohibited. Larger projects will still need resource consents.

The planning system has a 30-year vision, while RSS and NBEs are reviewed every nine years, with provision for out-of-cycle partial reviews. There will be 14 sets of planning instruments, down on the current 78 district and unitary plans, plus around 10 regional plans, and regional policy statements.

Iwi/Māori have increased opportunities for providing advice (nationally and regionally), exercising influence, making decisions, supporting decision-making, and also in monitoring and compliance.

For the concrete industry’s civil project customers, the consenting pathways look improved, in terms of speed - e.g., a fast-tracking process, a streamlined designation process, and access to different types of environmental management mechanisms.

Attention to visual effects is diminished, while there is more attention to managing noise.

TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE
In Concrete NZ’s view, the two Bills potentially create more problems than they solve.

A spectacular example is the many provisions sprinkled through the Natural and Built Environment Bill that deal with environmental limits, and how to manage environmental effects, which offer little or no clue to land users and developers what they can or cannot do.

Compounding the lack of clarity are numerous novel and/or undefined terms – e.g., minimise, trivial, redress, mana, mauri – that will force someone at their expense to resolve these issues in a court.

Enhanced Māori participation is fine as far as it goes, however, it means potentially more bureaucracy, piling more cost and time onto consenting and planning processes, while leaving unresolved who pays for that.

Proponents of smaller projects may find the bar on meeting environmental management requirements so high as to make their projects uneconomic.

Nor is there safety for existing resource consent holders. They may find their consents revoked, and then face the elevated cost of gaining new resource consents, potentially putting them out of business.

On a reading of media opinion, no one appears happy with the RMA reform. But some matters cause Concrete NZ less concern than others. Enhanced ministerial powers look to politicise the new system; however, this will also provide consistency where councils have failed previously. The lack of hierarchy between the 18 outcomes is hardly a problem – it promotes even-handed spatial planning, based on the values at issue in any region, surely a good thing.

TO CONCLUDE
In Concrete NZ’s view, the proposed cure for the RMA system raises more questions than answers.

Arguably, the Government should rescind both the Bills, and instead apply lessons learned from its attempt at legislative reform to improve the RMA.

Taken from Readymix News 21.