Simon Court ACT MP and Undersecretary to the Minister for RMA Reform and Infrastructure.
Development is coming for Kumeu, Huapai and the North-West. As the economy grows back from the recession left by Labour there will be demand for new homes and industrial land so local people can have good local jobs. The existing planning system, however, makes it very difficult, expensive and time consuming to get permission to build, and even impossible if an applicant doesn’t pass RMA tests.
What makes getting consents so expensive and take so long? Too many people have too many grounds to object to too many activities meaning nothing gets done. It’s not unusual for it to take longer to get permission to do something than to actually do it.
As an MP and Civil Engineer people often share insights with me into the problems facing their business when it comes to the RMA. An insider recently told me about a perfect location for a new service station planned next to a roadhouse on a State Highway. How wrong! A council planner concerned about “site contamination”, destroying “wetlands”, and the “visual effects” from the fuel price sign next to the highway told them it was a no-go, “non-complying” in planning-speak.
Building a service station on your own property to service customers you hope to attract shouldn’t require permission if it is done well. For decades cars parked outside a roadhouse leaked oil onto the ground, so building a service station will get that cleaned up and a concrete hardstand will stop it happening again.
An overgrown drain is not a wetland and would be replaced with a modern stormwater system including oil and water separators. Displaying fuel prices is required by law, no matter what visual effects a planner might be worried about.
Empowering Kiwis to take a punt and invest time, care, and capital into their land is how we open the door to prosperity. Whether it’s building a back yard retaining wall or a new service station, we must shift from precautionary to permissive, and get rid of the absurdity of navigating new consents and conditions for things we’ve done many times before and done well.
Last week I announced, beside Chris Bishop, that the Government is replacing the RMA with two laws based on Property rights, a core commitment in the National-ACT coalition agreement.
Putting property rights at the centre of resource management means ditching rules that invite every Tom, Dick, and Harry to vexatiously object to peaceful use and development of private property. Rules should only restrict activity with material spillover effects on other people’s enjoyment of their own property, or on the property rights of the wider natural environment that sustains us.
It is now official Government policy with a series of dates by when legislation will be drafted, introduced to Parliament, and passed into law. From 2026 your private property rights will be restored!
