RMA announcement

Written By: - Date published: 11:25 am, November 26th, 2015 - 24 comments
Categories: Conservation, maori party, sustainability - Tags: , ,

Changes to the RMA have just been announced. To be updated…

Detailed coverage now from Vernon Small, RNZ and The Herald. See in particular No Right Turn for the usual plainspoken analysis.

24 comments on “RMA announcement ”

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  1. ExRaynja 1
    26 November 2015 at 12:16 pm

    Interesting. Maori got big gains in the 2014 Heritage NZ Pouhere Taonga Act too. Current practice from Heritage NZ is that you have to consult with Tangata Whenua if you want to modify or destroy a European archaeological site, even where there is little or no chance of Maori values being affected, but you dont have to consult with the wider/European community.

  2. savenz 2
    26 November 2015 at 12:26 pm

    Looks like another sell out!

    The RMA process pretty much rubber stamps all consents so obviously the Natz need to make it easier to get resource consents – NOT. lets have a look Pike river consented, CTV building, etc
    Any motorway obviously… Ports of Auckland (a rare loss but ‘important’ people did not like it), any major housing eyesore, oil exploration, chicken farms, water dams, effluent pollution etc

    Yep, lets not worry about planning rules and effects to other people or the environment with our RMA… short term thinking is the name of this government…. after all JK says in maybe 50 years we can look at carbon issues…. Leaky building all over… nothing to see here relaxing building regs…. resource consents…..

  3. Ad 3
    26 November 2015 at 12:27 pm

    Same stuff-all result as TPPA.
    Let’s see them sell this.

  4. James 4
    26 November 2015 at 12:35 pm

    “The RMA process pretty much rubber stamps all consents”

    As someone involved in development from time to time, I can assure you that this is not the case.

    • Ad 4.1
      26 November 2015 at 12:45 pm

      A better phrasing would be that ‘the current RMA rules and District Plan mechanisms enable the great majority of decisions to go through without any public notification at all, let alone any appeals to the courts’.

      WTF Smith is trying to achieve for New Zealand is beyond me.

      • Mike the Savage One 4.1.1
        27 November 2015 at 12:11 pm

        Smith is first of all concerned about saving face, having talked about changing the RMA during the election campaign, and over the last year, to help address the housing crisis. Doing nothing was no option, so while Dunne was opposed to significant changes, and while ACT want to go further, the most convenient solution was to talk with the Maori Party and stitch up a deal, so that something can be presented to maintain “dignity” in front of the public.

        As for the rest, National and Nick Smith will not rest on that front, so any moderate change is yet a further softening of environmental law, which sets a precursor for future changes. That seems to be the agenda, softening up public perception and opinion, so to say, it is only a little bit of a change, so people will not worry, and worry less when more substantial changes may be proposed and announced at a later time.

    • savenz 4.2
      26 November 2015 at 2:41 pm

      @James if you have enough money the RMA process pretty much rubber stamps consents. Sorry, forgot to add if you have enough money.

    • savenz 5.1
      26 November 2015 at 2:45 pm

      @ropata, exactly, Natz making it cheaper to suppress local democracy via the “NEW’ non notified consent process. If you don’t know about it, then you are not affected???? Nat logic.

      Who now decides if you are affected – your ‘efficient planning council officer’ (sarc) under the NatZ

    • savenz 6.1
      27 November 2015 at 9:06 am

      Quote from NO right turn

      “They’re also using the bill to completely rewrite the EEZ Act to allow the Minister to “call in” applications and appoint stacked boards to produce the desired outcome – exactly as warned by Greenpeace a fortnight ago. So, I guess we’ll see those seabed miners back for another go at strip-mining the seafloor, this time with Paula Rebstock collecting a huge government salary to rubberstamp the applications. I’m extremely surprised the Maori Party accepted this, given their professed environmental values, and some pointy questions need to be asked there”

      • Mike the Savage One 6.1.1
        27 November 2015 at 12:15 pm

        “I’m extremely surprised the Maori Party accepted this, given their professed environmental values, and some pointy questions need to be asked there””

        Do not underestimate the business interests of some Maori and iwi based companies and corporations that we now have. They are no different to their Pakeha equivalents, I fear, when it comes to potential profits and gaining market shares and new opportunities.

  7. vto 7
    26 November 2015 at 2:21 pm

    Nick Smith is pretty much the biggest liar in this government, so don’t trust anything he says.

    Remember when he piled up all the district plans to show how much paperwork we have to deal with in getting a resource consent? About 50,000 pages. We have to go through every region’s district plans first. Lying deceptive bastard.

  8. Gosman 8
    26 November 2015 at 3:18 pm

    [Edit: This should have been in reply to savenz’s comments]

    You seem to be suggesting that the resource consent process should be made harder and therefore more costly with a higher degree of failure for the developer.

    If this is the case please lobby the local branch of your choice of left wing political parties (or all of them) to adopt this as party policy as soon as possible.

    • vto 8.1
      26 November 2015 at 3:22 pm

      What silly planet are you on now?

      The issue is the environment and its protection, not the success rate of developers…. do you not understand that with a clapped out environment we will not have any development at all? Currently the environment is unplugged and draining fast.

      Why is it so hard for you and your types to understand that to grow good veges you need good ground?

    • savenz 8.2
      27 November 2015 at 9:14 am

      It should be noted that in parts of the CHCH ‘red zone’ – it should never have been built on in the first place. The CH council denied development BEFORE the earthquake, and the developers appealed to environment court and won so they developed and it was later totally decimated in the earthquake.

      That land should never have been allowed to be built on, it the first place. Now the government via the tax payer bailed out the landowners whose land was deemed inhabitable.

      More examples of corporate welfare. Nobody seems to think that the original developers should pay, likewise how in environment court they got it through and the landowners who bought there thinking it was safe and the tax payers who again had to pay to compensate them.

      How much money has been recovered from the leaky building from developers? Not much – it is the rate payers and owners who are paying for that billion dollar botch up caused by the National government removing regulations to make it cheaper for developers.

  9. Smilin 9
    26 November 2015 at 10:47 pm

    Yep Key should apply to become a master magician -you just cant believe how he gets away with it right in front of you
    I can see the concrete and steel being fixed now, goodbye clean green it was just a pr stunt

  10. Mike the Savage One 10
    27 November 2015 at 12:18 am

    “Progress” in New Zealand is now what weakens environmental protection, and what hollows out the RMA, I must now presume.

    Catching up with the rest of the already largely ruined planet and countries, so things like building homes, roads, establishing new GE plants, facilitating mining and more liberal this and that, this seems to be the future for little Aotearoa NZ.

    I will need to look at the details to comment more, but my first impression is the above. It worries me to hear Phil Twyford ridicule the proposed changes, saying “is this it?”. So does Labour want to weaken the RMA more then?

    Planners know that the consenting process of buildings and so are not the biggest hurdle to build more homes or infrastructure projects, albeit there are at times serious challenges under the RMA. Other problems like the building supply oligopoly (for some materials monopoly), rip off builders and suppliers, the market distorting activities of speculators and land-bankers, the still existing overseas buyers managing to go around new rules, and lack of efficiency and productivity, plus of course the lack of available, qualified builders and other tradesmen, those are the real challenges we do have.

    Nick the D*ck is just that, a total d*ck, I feel.

    • ropata 10.1
      27 November 2015 at 12:53 am

      The Nactoid Corporation(tm) could have easily solved the housing crisis years ago with a few strokes of a pen. But no, they decided that white elephant projects like casino extensions and convention centres all over NZ were more important than ensuring decent housing. Because if working people could afford houses, how would their mates (speculators, bankers, slum landlords) get free money?

      • savenz 10.1.1
        27 November 2015 at 9:24 am

        Likewise the SHA is a rout. In Kumeu (Keys electorate), the SHA’s provided instant multimillionaires of landowners, however the affordable housing never happened.

        Instead the land was developed into sections at $350,000 (yep that is JUST the section so clearly not affordable by the time a house went on), the sections were bought up by house companies and the combined packages marketed at $700,000 plus, and now have been inflated up to $850,000 plus.

        As far as I am aware very few houses have been built there and $850,000 is clearly not affordable!

        No public transport was included in the plan. (in fact some rail links have been disbanded) and current commuters are now forced for years to go along the motorway which is being widened adding to the congestion.

        The Auckland council were happy to provide corporate welfare to Westfield development on route, on behalf of the ratepayers, but actually helping real people who pay their rates does not seem to be part of the plan.

        Likewise how many ‘affordable’ houses have been built by the government or developers in particular suitable for NZ families? I would say very few.

        • Mike the Savage One 10.1.1.1
          27 November 2015 at 12:20 pm

          That is what you get, when only 5 or 10 percent of new housing in SHAs is supposed to be “affordable”, based on the median price, but the rest can be used, built up and sold at higher market prices. We also learned yesterday, that since the SHAs came into force, only about 500 homes have been built in them all over Auckland (needing at least 13,000 new homes a year to catch up with demand over a few years, that is if population growth would stay as it has been over the last few years, not the last year). Only about a thousand or so consents were issued for SHAs in Auckland, but a consent is just that, a consent, not a built home.

          • savenz 10.1.1.1.1
            27 November 2015 at 7:32 pm

            Well there is 60,000 plus migrants coming in, but our government and economists repeatedly tells us, immigration does not effect housing!

            If we make landowners millionaires with SHA then the affordable houses will not be far away…. unfortunately they are, when the free market is about profit not actually housing people!

            SHA is also not working because land supply is not actually the biggest problem… quite a bit more complex than that. But why dispel the myth when there is money to be made for cronies and developers for the Natz. Meanwhile corporate welfare is the norm for big developments like Westfield, Sky City or what ever has some good connections.

            Now the Natz can use immigration to keep wages down too as well as the appearance of prosperity, win win for neoliberalism. I think there is a case recently people working for $2 an hour, which is clearly the tip of the iceberg.

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