Face of the Day

The coalition’s replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) will force councils to compensate landowners for significant restrictions that impact developments.

It will be an additional challenge for councils facing rising costs and widespread changes in other areas, including restrictions on what they are able to spend funding on – and an incoming four per cent cap on rates increases.

The reforms follow a similar model to Labour’s attempt, aiming to creating two new laws – a Natural Environment law and a Planning law.

More than 100 reporters, stakeholders, commentators and officials spent two hours going over the documents ahead of the official release at 1pm, revealing the information all at once to avoid market disruption.

The planning bill would lay out what infrastructure is needed and when, with land secured for key infrastructure like roads, schools, and utilities. Regional policy statements are being scrapped and replaced with ‘Regional Combined Plans’ which include spatial planning, environmental planning, and land-use planning.

Zoning – currently up to councils, with more than 1100 different zones across the country – will also be standardised, with new “overlays” providing additional and sometimes stricter rules for specific areas where consents would normally be permitted.

The government estimates its new system will save about $13.3b over the next 30 years and increase GDP by 0.56 per cent a year by 2050.

RNZ