Caroline Miller: RMA changes not the full solution

Environment Minister Dr Nick Smith

The Resource Management Act is probably the most amended act in New Zealand, with each change accompanied by a promise that the latest modification will secure a better, faster, more efficient and cheaper system.

The problem is that whatever change the amendment brings about is found wanting by the next party in power.

Equally, we know from past attempts that legislative change does not in itself secure better planning practice.

That is the danger with the latest reform, that it will raise expectations of change that will not be achieved.

That is even more likely given the mixed goals the latest reforms are seeking.

Affordable housing will not be achieved solely through RMA reform, as it is a product of a complex range of factors including the cost and availability of finance, the cost of building materials, and the availability of adequately trained builders.

Changing the RMA will change none of those factors.

If planning is to be sidelined to force affordable housing developments through then that will be at the cost of community involvement in decision-making, something that has always been at the heart of RMA processes.

If these rights are curtailed they will effectively limit people's private property rights, something the Environment Minister [Dr Nick Smith] says the reforms will protect. It is hard to see how that incompatibility will be overcome.

The minister has also made much of the reforms being based on the independent Motu Research et al. report.

A quick scan of that report reveals that it is based only on an assessment of development in Auckland, where planning has always been difficult due to the speed of growth and doubly difficult as the city still has to plan with a patchwork of legacy plans.

Its assessment also includes building consent costs and issues which fall outside the purview of the RMA, bringing into question the reliability of the oft quoted cost figures and the impact of RMA changes.

The report also acknowledges the $15,000 and $30,000 figures are not the product of a cost-benefit study and may be justified through the benefits they achieve.

Communities are very protective of residential areas and have clear ideas and expectations of what they will accept in those areas.

Consultation processes, a central aspect of the RMA, ensure those views get incorporated into plans.

So you can change the RMA but unless you reverse some 40 years of planning processes and exclude these voices, then plans will not change.

Plans are the reflection of each community's wants and needs and finding a universal 'right' model is like finding a unicorn.

- Associate Professor Caroline Miller is a Resource Management Act and planning specialist in Massey University's College of Humanities and Social Sciences' School of People, Environment and Planning.

-Business and civic leaders, organisers, experts in their field and interest groups can contribute opinions. The views expressed here are the writer's personal opinion and not the newspaper's. Email: editor@hbtoday.co.nz