When the RMA was introduced in 1991, it was promoted as transformational environmental legislation that would enable development while protecting the environment. Simon Upton, the Environment Minister who shepherded the legislation through Parliament, said that provided its core environmental objectives were met, “what people get up to is their affair. As such, the Bill provides a more liberal regime for developers.”
Time
proved otherwise. Since coming into force in 1991, the RMA has been amended over 100 times.
Rather than simply enabling development subject to environmental safeguards,
critics argue that it evolved into an increasingly complex and interventionist
planning regime, giving councils and opponents of development considerable
scope to restrict, delay and add costs to projects.
The
coalition Government's immediate response was the Fast-track Approvals Act, side-stepping
the RMA to provide an alternative consenting pathway for selected projects. It
has now enacted what it sees as the more permanent solution: the Planning Act,
focused on land-use planning and regulation, and the Natural Environment Act,
focused on the use, protection and enhancement of the natural environment.
The
Government says the new regime will make it easier to build homes and
infrastructure, reduce unnecessary consenting costs and delays, and limit the
ability of groups without a direct interest in a development to use the
consenting process to hold up projects.
How
long the new Acts retain their present form remains to be seen. Labour has
indicated it would amend the new regime rather than resurrect the old RMA,
including restoring statutory mechanisms for iwi participation. The Greens,
meanwhile, argue that the reforms have weakened environmental safeguards.
Thirty-five
years after politicians promised a simpler system that would protect the
environment while allowing people greater freedom to develop their property,
New Zealand is effectively starting again – new legislation, same promises.