Dialogue: If you want to bend rules, be ready to pay the price

By DAVID THORNTON*

As the Resource Management Amendment Bill grinds through the parliamentary process, business is demanding significant changes which would ultimately deprive residents and ratepayers of their right to have a say in what happens to their local environment.

The major grumble from the business sector concerns public notification - the process which opens up to public scrutiny development proposals that conflict with district plans.

The Business Compliance Cost Panel claims that the process allows an often small handful of opponents, including trade competitors, to delay projects for up to two years - and is extremely costly to business.

Opposing the business sector's case is, among others, the lobby group Environment and Conservation Organisations, which argues that only 5 per cent of resource consent applications are publicly notified.

The group also claims that before the introduction of the act, more than 40 per cent of land-use applications were notified.

Under the act, 95 per cent of resource consent applications are not notified and go through without any problem - although some of them should have been notified, and perhaps a few should have been rejected.

The undeniable fact is that relatively few applications are put under public scrutiny. Perhaps we should have some in-depth research which analyses all these applications so we can get a feel for where the problems really lie within the act.

Consider the process. Under the act, each local and regional council must produce a district or regional plan.

This is first issued as a draft which is advertised, along with calls for public submissions. Some councils consult widely even before producing the draft plan.

Those submissions are then advertised and further submissions are called for. When all those submission are in, there is a series of public hearings at which all those who made submissions are able to advance arguments in support of their particular view.

These hearings are generally held before panels of elected councillors, who presumably have a good grasp of local issues relating to the build and natural environment of their district, cities and regions.

Councils then make formal decisions on all the submissions - accepting some, rejecting most or reaching a compromise.

After that comes the appeal process. Any submitter not happy with the decisions of the council can lodge an appeal with the Environment Court.

If that appeal fails, submitters can go to the High Court on matters of law. And after all - or nearly all - of those appeals are disposed of, the plan can be made operative by the council.

That operative district plan is then the gospel for development of most of the land within the boundaries of the local authority. Some crown land, however, has its own set of rules - and telecommunications companies retain certain rights to dig up our streets.

It is truly an exhaustive process. But to all intents and purposes the general resident, and the business community, of course, have a document upon which they should be able to rely when considering what could be developed in any street or neighbourhood.

Anyone can then develop what they wish if it is within the rules of the district plan. That type of building does not even need resource consent.

Thus, as long as a developer keeps within the rules, there is no question of public notification and hearing.

But, of course, many developers do not keep within the rules. Anxious to squeeze every ounce of profit from a project, the developers' expert consultants and lawyers seek to exploit any loophole in the plan - or simply make a non-complying application which might or might not be publicly notified. And that is when the costs start to hit home.

People object because the project is not permitted as of right in the district plan. Those objections have to be answered by the developer, thus leading to the expensive public hearing and appeal process. But those costs arise only because a company or person wants to develop land in a way which, through the district plan process, the community has rejected.

When people buy a new home, or some land, they have a right to know what sort of development is contemplated around them. They can get that knowledge from the district plan.

Is it not fair and reasonable, therefore, that if someone wants to do something quite different, that person should expect the new proposal to be subjected to the same public scrutiny that was required when the district plan was being prepared? And if that costs money - and it surely will - so be it.

There are endless stories of non-complying and discretionary developments proceeding without public notification and later - usually too late - attracting the wrath of local communities.

Within the Resource Management Amendment Bill is a proposal that the public be given an opportunity to contest non-notification decisions in the Environment Court before development begins.

Those who have suffered in the face of the non-notifying excesses of many councils will hope that Parliament stands firm and gives them the right to have a say on what is happening in their communities - a right which was intended to be enshrined in the Resource Management Act.

* David Thornton is a former North Shore City councillor.