The Environment Select Committee has released their reports on the Spatial Planning and Natural and Built Environment Bills. Te Kōkiringa Taumata | The New Zealand Planning Institute (the Institute) has been waiting for these recommendations and has undertaken an initial review of the reports. 

“We have been waiting for the Committee’s recommendations. We were credited by the Minister for the substantial work that went into our submission on the bills and have been hopeful that we’ll see changes that reflect advice from planning practitioners” says Reginald Proffit, Chair of the Institute’s Board. “We’re seeing the effects of climate change with recent extreme weather events in Aotearoa, the supply of affordable housing and infrastructure continue to be a priority and we hope to see changes in resource management legislation that support meaningful partnerships under Te Tiriti”.

NZPI CEO David Curtis says “Our members are the practitioners responsible for implementing this legislation. In developing our submission, we worked with our members to look closely at the detail of the bills. Our submission highlighted the need for strong national direction through a well-considered National Planning Framework (NPF) and a national spatial plan that identifies natural hazard risk, nationally significant infrastructure and puts regions in a clearer position to plan for growth. We also supported a move to outcomes-based planning and for the act to have a clear purpose that guides partnership under Te Tiriti. In our initial review of the Committee’s report, we can see the Committee has agreed with some important recommendations in the Institute’s submission.”

Implementation and Timeframes 

Practitioners have been concerned about the uncertainty associated with implementation of the new system. We are pleased to see the Environment Committee accepted our recommendation to reconsider these matters. 

One issue we had was with ‘tranching’, where some regions would move into the system before others, resulting in disparity across the country. This may still occur, but the committee has recommended changes that mean the time to get the system up and running could be shorter than what we anticipated when the bills were introduced. 

A second concern was how the new system will work alongside the RMA during the transition. This was completely absent from the bill as introduced. We welcome the clarity provided by the Committee on how the old and new system will work together. However, there are a lot of transitional provisions, suggesting a complicated transition.

Mandatory Hearings for RSS’s 

Public participation in the preparation of Regional Spatial Strategies is of critical importance to NZPI’s members and the Institute were concerned that these important documents could be adopted without any direct engagement with the public. The Environment Committee has recognised this. We are pleased to see hearings made mandatory for Regional Spatial Strategies. 

Consenting Changes and Outcomes 

What is planning all about? It appears the Environment Committee has given this significant consideration and made substantial changes to the purpose of the NBEA. Shifting from a dual purpose to a single purpose for the Act ensures that planning will be about upholding “te Oranga o te Taiao” and protecting the environment will be paramount. These changes provide a new focus for planning for New Zealand’s future. Use of a te reo purpose is bold and will take some getting used to, but it sets the scene for planning in partnership under Te Tiriti. 

NZPI continues to support planning for outcomes, but it appears our suggested changes to realise the full potential of the change from managing effects under the RMA to planning for outcomes under the NBEA may not have been incorporated into the changes. 

National Planning Framework and Spatial Planning 

NZPI sees national leadership in the new system as essential to make sure everything works as intended and New Zealand gets the benefits of the changes. The National Planning Framework is key to this. We are disappointed that our request to take the time to get the National Planning Framework right has not been reflected in the changes. It looks to be full steam ahead with the promulgation of the first version of the NPF due within six months of the bills being enacted. We understand this will be limited to providing support for the development of Regional Spatial Strategies. 

As noted above we are pleased to see changes to ensure local voices are empowered in the Regional Spatial Strategy process, but we are disappointed that a national spatial strategy, where the equally critical national voice should be heard, is not included in the amendments. We hold some hope that the National Planning Framework may be able to fill this critical role. 

A Digitally Enabled System 

It appears that the Committee have gone some way to address some matters raised in our submission around equitable and open access to environmental data. Public access to consistent environmental data (in terms of its collection and recording) is vital to ensuring decisions are sustainable and can be reviewed, and then benchmarked locally and nationally. However, environmental data collection and access is just one part of developing a fit-for-purpose digitally enabled system for resource management in New Zealand. We encourage further discussion on how this can be addressed in implementation of the bill to best ensure the system efficiencies and effectiveness which these reforms seek to deliver. 

Climate Adaptation Act 

NZPI continues to raise concerns that the Climate Adaptation Act is not being introduced to Parliament alongside these two bills. The Spatial Planning Bill includes a requirement to identify areas vulnerable to climate change in regional spatial strategies. This is a good start. We hope that the additional time being taken to develop the Climate Adaptation legislation will result in a transformational Bill, providing a comprehensive legislative planning framework that supports positive outcomes for New Zealand, now and into the future.

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