RMA reforms speed up processes for infrastructure

3 February 2009

RMA reforms speed up the processes for infrastructure
and gives choices on process

Changes announced today by the Government to the Resource Management Act, particularly the priority given to national infrastructure, will significantly speed up timeframes for infrastructure planning applications – both big and small and place the power to decide the process largely in the hands of the applicants says IPENZ.

“Rather than the Minister having call in powers, these reforms place the choice in the hands of the applicants and allows them to make an application by a Board of inquiry. If eligible, the application will be sent to the Board of Inquiry who must make a final decision within 9 months,” says Tim Davin, Director of Policy for the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand. “This is good news it means the power is in the hands of the applicant to decide their own process.”

“A key part of this change is that rather than these provisions relating just to infrastructure of national significance such as a major transmission line, it will apply to parts of a network that are national. In other words a State Highway project that in isolation are not nationally significant such as in a rural area, will still be eligible for this type of application because they are part of a national roading network," says Mr Davin. “Although there will need to be some further attention to the definition of a nationwide network utility operator. There are a number of major lines companies and telecommunication providers who are national operators, but most of their network is local in nature. Does the government wish to give these powers to these utility operators?”

“Another interesting provision is for resource consent applicants and requiring authorities (usually infrastructure providers) to be able to have their application referred directly to the Environment Court provided the local authority has first agreed. Again this places the decision on process largely in the applicants hands. This looks to be a very worthwhile provision – although there will need to be some criteria around the local authority’s ability to decline this direct referral to the Environment Court.”

IPENZ would have liked to see rationalisation and consolidation of the various Acts that sometimes result in infrastructure applications having to get a number of approvals and can face several appeal s – and will be making this point in submissions to the Bill.

ENDS

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