More than half a year after asking, Tasman District Council is still waiting for permission to continue its work to enable housing and protect some of the world’s clearest water.
Last year, the council had been developing two plan changes, which are suites of proposed alterations to the district’s resource management plan.
Plan Change 81 – Urban Growth would zone more residential areas, create a medium density zone to encourage intensification, and allocate more land for commercial and industrial use.
Plan Change 84 – Freshwater is focused on protections to support the Water Conservation Order for the tapu Te Waikoropupū Springs which aims to see nitrate levels reduced.
But in July, Minister for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop issued a stop-work order for councils developing plan changes.
The order is intended to ensure councils do not waste time and effort making changes that could be made redundant under the Government’s reforms of the RMA and national freshwater regulations.
Councils can apply for exemptions to keep working on specific plan changes, which Tasman did so in August PC84 and in September for PC81.
Nitrate levels in Te Waikoropupū Springs are potentially close to a “tipping point”, and the council wants to implement PC84 so it was not obliged to impose “stringent controls” on the local catchment if the reforms kept Water Conservation Orders and nitrate targets were missed.
Both exemption applications saw requests for further information in October, and the council supplied those relevant details within three weeks.
Further consultation on the urban growth plan change took place in the New Year and current indications are that a decision is expected on its exemption application in a few weeks.
But as for PC84, the Ministry for the Environment told the council that officials had a high volume of requests to work through when the council requested an update in mid-December.
Similar update requests to MfE officials “several times” since then had not received a response despite direct advocacy from Mayor Tim King.
“We haven’t had the same degree of interaction with the government via MfE or the Minister on where we sit with Plan Change 84,” Tim said during the March meeting of the council’s information forum.
“We’ve advocated for a decision so that we can all move on and get the community’s input and work through the process, but [we have] less information about where the Government’s sitting on that than there is on Plan Change 81.”
He thought freshwater rules were likely a lower priority for the Government than housing growth.
Following questions from Local Democracy Reporting, an MfE spokesperson says the Ministry reviewed its correspondence with the council and located an email dated from February to which it has since replied.
“The PC84 exemption application is complex and requires careful consideration under section 80W of the Resource Management Act, which deals with freshwater planning,” the spokesperson says.
Minister Bishop agreed that the freshwater plan change was “complex” and is still being assessed against statutory criteria.
“I expect to receive further advice in the coming weeks.”
Regarding the urban growth plan change, he added that consultation with the council was deliberately undertaken after December once national policies for natural hazards and productive land came into effect.
Tasman District Council’s environmental policy manager, Barry Johnson, confirmed that he has finally received a reply from the Ministry outlining those points about PC84.
“It is somewhat disappointing that officials are still to provide advice to the Minister given we responded to the Minister’s request for further information four and a half months ago,” he says.
“To be honest, it’s not a complex plan change.”
