Streamline Process
Bogged Down in Process
Plans are notified with policies, methods and rules that demonstrate a lack of understanding of their implications for farming activities. This can lead to perverse outcomes that stifle on-farm innovation and require virtual "farming by consent". Councils and planners at times tend to take extreme views when dealing with innovative or new land use activities in response to a "public" who wish to retain their perceptions of an "ideal" rural landscape.
In some councils there is a lack of consistency among staff members responsible for dealing with long consent applications, plan variations and communications with submitters or applicants. Inexperienced staff and the requirement for a greater degree of expert analysis mean that consents are being processed by multiple staff members and contractors, increasing costs for the applicant.
These delays in processing consents are frustrating farmers and are further compounded by the use of section 92 (further information requirements) of the RMA that have been used to avoid meeting statutory deadlines or to enable further external technical information to be gathered by consultants or to cover default criteria relating to every consent.
The use of section 32 (cost/benefit/alternatives offered) is often superficial in nature and based on subjective statements without really analysing information to justify objectives, policies and rules on a particular activity.
Councils are continuing to raise the bar on what evidence they will accept at hearings, either on consents or plans. Farmers are increasingly being told that evidence from a recognised expert is required to validate proposed or existing farming activities. The exchange of evidence process at the Environment Court is becoming more and more time-consuming. Evidence is becoming so complex and wordy that it precludes any lay person effectively participating in the process. There is a general acceptance that the quality of decision-making has not been strengthened by the volume of evidence presented to the court yet it vastly increases the cost of hearings.
Introduce a “one-stop consent shop” and stop unnecessary box ticking
There is a need to streamline limited-effect consent processes to enable applicants to receive sign-off for low-impact activities that currently require consent (alternately councils could make these activities permitted). An alternative approach is to encourage best practice or enable in the Act a single page form and a site visit where a council officer would sign off the activity and issue the consent in a single on farm visit. This would likely resolve many of the process-related problems with further information requests and misinterpreted communications from both applicants and councils.
Another approach is to increase the level of delegated decision-making given to council staff, which may also reduce time delays, increase consistency and reduce costs for the applicant, particularly for applications relating to controlled activities.
There is a need for a separate body (such as Audit New Zealand and/or the Ministry for the Environment) to audit the procedure followed with respect to local authority activity under the Resource Management Act and a mandate for that body to take action if poor process is indentified.
