As a result, the RMA has been a major factor in New Zealand having some of the least affordable house prices in the OECD, and one of the reasons we have had a shortage of homes and failed to build the infrastructure we need.
Getting developments off the ground is costly and time-consuming.
Te Waihanga, the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission, estimates infrastructure providers are spending $1.29 billion a year on consenting processes, equivalent to 5.5 per cent of the total cost of a project.
This puts us beyond the extreme end of equivalent costs in the UK and EU, which range between 0.1 per cent and 5 per cent. Costs have increased by 70 per cent from 2014 to 2019 and timeframes have blown out too, increasing by 150 per cent for infrastructure projects. Council fees for notified consents are up 124 per cent between 2015 and 2019. That’s why the Government is moving to repeal the RMA and pass new replacement laws, the Spatial Planning Bill and the Natural and Built Environment Bill, this parliamentary term.
We want to see a significant improvement in housing supply, affordability and choice, as well as quicker provision of appropriate infrastructure to help our communities thrive. We’ve already got some runs on the board.
Recognising the urgent need for more housing, last year the Government — with the support of the National Party — rolled out medium-density residential standards, which allow for up to three dwellings of up to three storeys each to be built on each site, with limits on height, site coverage and setbacks.
Medium-density residential standards, along with other national directions — such as the national policy statements on freshwater and on highly productive land — will be carried over and consolidated into the National Planning Framework with a new part to aid infrastructure development.
The fast-track law, put in place in response to Covid, has proved a success, reducing the consenting time by 15 months on average. A process similar to the fast-track process will be retained for infrastructure and significant housing developments.
But we will not adopt fast-track for all projects as the National Party has suggested. They are on the wrong track on that. It would gum up the system, turning fast-track into slow-track.
In the new system, there will be a number of other improvements to aid infrastructure developments.
More than 100 RMA plans will drop to just 15 regional-level plans across the country. The time taken to prepare them will reduce from 10 years to a maximum of four years.
Off-the-shelf standards for housing and infrastructure projects will remove the need for bespoke specifications for each project, lowering the number of consents needed.
Developers, infrastructure providers and businesses will see the largest savings as consent volumes and costs decrease, saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
The analysis that accompanies the law changes estimates that the new system will deliver benefits of $2.58 to $4.90 for every $1 spent. Those benefits flow to the private sector.
On a conservative estimate, costs to users will fall by 19 per cent a year, or $149m, equal to more than $10 billion over 30 years. Benefits will flow to the general public through cost savings for housing and fewer consents. The environmental benefits — which cannot be valued in dollar terms — will be substantial.
The most significant change to enhance environmental protection will be a shift from an effects-based approach to one that is based on outcomes. The RMA approach of “avoid, remedy and mitigate” allowed small negative effects to accumulate - leading to water degradation, plus a loss of biodiversity and valuable topsoil.
The Natural and Built Environments Act will focus on biophysical outcomes, setting limits to maintain current environmental levels and targets where degradation needs to be restored.
The bills introduced on November 15 are based on the recommendations of the Randerson Panel, which drew on a very broad range of advice including from the EMA, the Environmental Defence Society, Infrastructure New Zealand, local government, the Property Council, the Productivity Commission and the Waitangi Tribunal.
They will now go to a full select committee process for the next six months. We aim to pass them into law in 2023, before the election.
The changes we are making will make the system faster, cheaper and better, bringing New Zealand’s resource management system up to date to meet the challenges our communities are facing.
