Close scrutiny of the legal requirements surrounding private plan changes, reveals major deficiencies in the public planning process.
The “shot-gun” marriage of the Local Government Act with the Resource Management Act, has long been a subject of doubt and questioning, but has lacked objective investigation.
It has always been the fact that Council planning processes are administered under the LGA and it has always been the fact that private plan changes are enacted under the RMA, this alone makes the process vulnerable, if not illegal.
The intention however is that both are designed to achieve the same object rather then one having the aim of “undoing” the other, as a Plan Change does.
The declared intent of the LGAct. and the RMA is that both are committed to enhance the Social, Economic, Environmental and Cultural, well being of the community.
This is then claimed to equate the RMA with the LGA and this is the where the error lies.
It fails to recognise that Social, Economic, Environmental and Cultural are headings for policies which have set with full public participation and scrutiny under the LGA and simply reprinting the headings in the RMA does not transfer all that democratically recorded work to the private process now replacing it under the RMA.
The effect of just this single act wipes out the entire public process surrounding the elaborate and costly exercise in producing LTCCP, the Annual Plan the Community Outcomes, while giving the impression it has all been maintained.
It means the entire public process is open to change at any time, at the free will of a Private Plan Change.
Don Briggs
Paraparaumu
