The Government’s Resource Management Act (RMA) reforms will see all Councils across NZ writing new spatial, land use and natural environment plans over the next three years. These will determine how our region prospers, develops and protects the environment over the next 30 years.
I presented this week Nelson City Council’s submission to the Environment Committee at Parliament on the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill, over 800 pages of proposed new law. I made a plea for the legislation to provide for just one combined spatial plan for Nelson and Tasman. We will get a much better plan for the region if they are combined given how interdependent Nelson and Tasman are. It will also save ratepayers millions if we do it together.
We are in a unique situation where we have the contiguous urban area of over 70,000 people between Nelson, Stoke and Richmond split between two regions. Decisions such as providing new areas for housing, industry and commerce and how we provide future transport and water infrastructure cannot sensibly be made in isolation from each other. It is also consistent with the previous work done by our two Councils in having a joint Future Development Strategy.
It may seem ironic, as a former National MP, that I am advocating for reinstatement of the clause requiring a single Nelson-Tasman plan in Labour’s 2023 attempt at reforming the RMA, but my job as Mayor is to get the best possible law and outcome for the region.
I am a supporter of the bulk of the Government’s reform. The current RMA system is too complex, has too many layers, has too many plans and requires too many consents. The new system will in time work better, but there is massive job ahead in determining the plans and rules for 51,000 titles of property worth $53 billion in our region.
The Nelson and Tasman Councils will need to work very hard, engage well with our community and employ the best of planning and technical expertise to get these new plans right, but we will do a better job with one plan.
