Long-awaited RMA reform passed

After years of negotiations, the National government’s proposed RMA reforms were passed into law in April with support from the Maori Party – a move Environment and Building and Construction Minister Dr Nick Smith said will help increase supply and affordability of housing

The 250-page Resource Legislation Amendment Bill passed its third reading in the house on 6 April and includes 700 clauses affecting the Resource Management Act, Public Works Act, Conservation Act, Reserves Act and the Exclusive Economic Zone (Environmental Effects) Act.

In a speech to the House, Dr Smith said that land supply is at the core of New Zealand’s housing problem.

“The cost of building an average 170m2 home in Auckland has increased from $120,000 25 years ago to $360,000 today – a threefold increase. But the cost of the average section over the same period has gone from $53,000 to $530,000 – a tenfold increase,” he said. “You cannot pretend to be serious about improving the affordability of housing unless you are prepared to address the price of new sections and reform the very Act, the RMA, which governs their creation.”

Significant provisions in the bill include:

• National planning standards to reduce complexity and cost (due to take effect in 2019).
• Streamlined planning process to improve responsiveness.
• Discretion for councils to exempt an activity from consents.
• Strengthening of requirements to manage natural hazard risks.
• New ten-day consent category for minor activities.
• New requirements for councils to free up land for housing.
• New provisions to enable stock exclusion from waterways.
• New provisions requiring decommissioning plans for offshore platforms.
• More generous compensation for land required for public works.
• Better alignment with other Acts such as Reserves, Conservation and EEZ.
• Collaborative planning process to encourage community-led solutions.
• Improved Maori participation arrangements.

From 18 October, councils and consenting authorities will also have a number of new powers allowing them to waive or speed up resource consent applications. 

Boundary exemption to speed up small projects

Councils must exempt ‘boundary activities’ from needing a resource consent if neighbours provide written approval of the activity, which could reduce the consenting cost of minor projects such as car ports and decks.

Once an exemption is granted, applicants have five years to carry out the specified activity before it lapses. Councils have ten working days to provide applicants with written notice that their exemption has been approved.

Where the council determines that a resource consent application qualifies as a boundary activity, then the council must provide a boundary exemption and return the resource consent application.

Minor rule breaches exempt from consent

From the same date, councils may also waive resource consents where a rule breach is only ‘marginal or temporary’. The criteria for deciding whether to provide an exemption includes:

• The activity would be a permitted activity except for a marginal or temporary non-compliance with the requirements, conditions and permissions specified in the RMA, regulations (including any national environmental standard) or any plan or proposed plan for that area
• Any adverse environmental effects of the activity are no different in character, intensity or scale than they would be in the absence of the marginal or temporary non-compliance
• Any adverse effects of the activity on a person are less than minor.

If these criteria are met, the consent authority can provide written notice to the person that their activity is permitted. Unlike boundary exemptions, there is no time limit for this process.

Ten-day fast-track process

Where previously all non-notified resource consent applications were subject to the same 20-working-day process, the RMA has been amended to introduce a new ‘fast-track’ process for simple resource consent applications that are district land use activities with controlled activity status, if an electronic address for service has been provided.

If other types of consents are also needed as part of a resource consent application, it will not qualify for the fast-track process. The fast-track pathway does not apply to consents required due to infringement of regional rules.

“These reforms will reduce the number of consents required by thousands,” Dr Smith said. “This boils down to things like homeowners wanting to build a deck having to consult only with an affected neighbour, and no consent being required for issues that involve minor or temporary rule breaches.”