'Post-RMA' process looms as National seeks new urban planning report

Entrenched government disquiet with current urban planning practice is behind a further Productivity Commission inquiry into regulation of urban land, which observers believe could see the Resource Management Act's planning functions split into separate legislation.

"There's generally some momentum behind looking at what's called colloquially 'after the RMA'," said Gary Taylor, executive director of the Environmental Defence Society, who supports a royal commission of inquiry into whether the 1991 RMA needs substantial reform but fears the "ideological bent" in the Productivity Commission's thinking to date.

"I'm wary about those guys, while being up for that discussion more generally," Mr Taylor told BusinessDesk.

The Finance, Housing, Local Government, Environment and Transport Ministers collectively issued terms of reference for the inquiry last night, calling for a "first principles" review of New Zealand's urban planning systems.

"The review should look beyond the current resource management and planning paradigm and legislative arrangements to consider fundamentally alternative ways of delivering improved urban planning and, subsequently, development," the terms of reference say. Its scope "should include, but not be limited to the kinds of interventions and funding/governance frameworks currently delivered by the Local Government Act, the Resource Management Act, the Land Transport Management Act and the elements of the Building Act, Reserves Act and Conservation Act relating to land use."

To be completed by November next year, the latest report follows last month's release of the commission's final report on "using land for housing," which recommended allowing central government to intervene to release land for housing development in circumstances where a local government was failing to do so, using comparisons between urban and rural land use as the benchmark for justifying intervention. The report also recommended a fuller review of urban planning.

The commission has already produced reports on both housing affordability and local government regulation since being established after the 2008 election as part of the support arrangement between the National and Act parties.

The moves have prompted speculation, voiced in the private daily newsletter Politik, that the government is starting to contemplate a return to the approach that prevailed before the RMA, where planning matters were dealt with separately from environmental regulation, through the then Town and Country Planning Act.

The commission's brief for the new report closely resembles recommendations from the New Zealand Centre for Infrastructure Development, a lobby group.

Such an approach may provide a long-term alternative to the government's failed attempt to reform the RMA's purpose clauses to more evenly weight environmental and economic considerations. Those reforms have been effectively shelved since the Northland by-election, in March, which left the National Party-led government without a parliamentary majority for its most controversial RMA proposals.

"Urban planning in New Zealand not only underpins housing affordability but also the productivity of the wider economy," said Finance Minister Bill English in a statement. "International practice has moved on and so must New Zealand."

Mr Taylor said environmental advocates were open to environmental and planning law change, in part because of evidence that the RMA was not delivering well enough for environmental objectives but warned that separate town planning and environmental legislation may not necessarily lead to simpler processes.

"The idea of replacing a one-stop shop with a two-tiered system could be moving in the wrong direction by putting additional complexity into the system."

(BusinessDesk)