Meeting on nitrogen rules will be 'less emotional'

Lake Rotorua Photo/Ben Fraser

A community-organised meeting on the proposed nitrogen rules for Lake Rotorua landowners will be different from previous meetings on the topic, an organiser says.

The proposed rules set out how nitrogen discharge allowances will be allocated to individual rural properties using a mix of resource consents and permitted activities.

The rules are likely to affect all properties over 2ha in the Lake Rotorua groundwater catchment.

Organiser Sharon Love encourages everyone to come to the meeting, which is being run by community group Project Rotorua, and to submit questions before the meeting next Sunday.

"It's not going to be the same presentation and the same stuff - there won't be the opportunity to have people disrupting the meeting, so we are going to get all the questions beforehand."

She said emotions had run high in previous meetings, which limited productivity.

"People were put off by the screaming and the yelling last time.

"There will be no comments from the floor of the meeting.

"The consultants are coming in their own time, and it's a follow-up on advice and support.

"The idea is that the consultants are there because of their skills. It is more about coming along and listening and then at the end we will be asking for some guidance as to where we go from here. The idea is to get the whole community involved - everyone should understand what's going on, even if it doesn't affect you directly, getting it wrong might indirectly affect you through your rates."

An independent board was set up earlier this year to reduce nitrogen discharge into the lake.

The sustainable nitrogen limit of 435 tonnes of nitrogen must be met by 2032, with 70 per cent of the catchment target reached by 2022.