The AQA submission on the Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill stresses that a National Environment Standard (NES) for quarrying is essential to provide a simplified and consistent approach to dealing with quarrying permits.
In its submission responding to the Bills, the quarry association stressed that our country needs a secure supply of quarry materials to provide infrastructure now and for future generations.
“In order to do this, it is critical that planning is streamlined; quarry resources are protected so they can supply vital construction materials; and quarry land is returned as an asset to the community once extraction is complete.”
To achieve this, the AQA says: “We consider it imperative that local authorities are directed to protect key resource areas and enable their development in order to: protect existing quarries from encroachment of non-compatible land uses such as housing, reduce reverse sensitivity potential, and to enable the expansion of these resources and development of new greenfield resources.”
More specifically, the AQA says both Bills need to provide clearer statutory guidance on how competing objectives and outcomes are prioritised and reconciled.
“Reliance on broad evaluative judgement should be reduced in favour of clearer rules, standards and decision-making hierarchies.”
The presence in the Bills of undefined terms will lead to protracted legal proceedings for the courts to interpret what was intended. “Such litigation would take time and be very costly, a highlighted weakness in the current Resource Management system.”
An example of this problem is the language used in the Planning Bill’s goals.
“The Bill’s goals include terms such as ‘unreasonably affect others’ (clause 11(1)(a)) and ‘inappropriate development’ (clause 11(1)(g)) that are not defined in the legislation.
“Without clearer definition or statutory guidance, decision-makers and courts will develop varying interpretations, undermining the consistency and predictability the reform is intended to deliver.”
Environmental limits
Environmental limits in the Bills are set for air, freshwater, coastal water, land and soil, and indigenous biodiversity – with a minimum acceptable state, or the maximum acceptable harm or pressure on the natural environment. It is important, says the AQA, that these environmental limits allow for the specific characteristics of different regions throughout the country, and the system for establishing these limits be flexible enough to cater for regional and ecosystem variations, and that, given the new system is heavily dependent on the development of national instruments, limits are set with a strong scientific basis.
An NES for quarrying
While supporting the National Policy Direction, the AQA says the National Standards should include a National Environment Standard (NES) for quarrying to streamline natural resource permitting and ensure quarrying is conducted in an environmentally and socially responsible way, while providing direction to local authorities on the protection of existing quarries from encroachment of non-compatible land uses.
“As natural resource permits are discretionary activities under the Bills, an NES for Quarrying is essential to allowing permitted and restricted discretionary activities for quarry permits, together with more standardised consent conditions.”
Given the new system is heavily dependent on the development of ‘national instruments’ (including hard environmental limits), the AQA argues that it will be important that any limits are set with a strong scientific basis to ensure resource use is not necessarily constrained. They must also provide options for local communities to best manage and use local resources for the economic, environmental, social and cultural aspirations for their regions.
Although provided for in Clause 104 of the Natural Environment Bill, greater use should also be made of ‘adaptive management plans’ as a means of achieving positive environmental outcomes.
“Embedding management plans within permits will enable the consenting authority, and permit holder, to ensure outcomes are achieved by providing a more agile approach when thresholds of effects on the receiving environment need to be adjusted.”
Regular reviews of these plans will also ensure that consequences on the environment that were not anticipated during the permitting process can be addressed quickly, rather than relying on a protracted process for the review of consent conditions.
Securing material resources
On the concept of spatial planning and provisions within the Planning Bill to reduce plans to a single one for each region (together with land use plans for development activities), the AQA says any zoning or overlays in plans to provide for quarrying activity should be exempt from the provisions for regulatory relief, which will give councils confidence to plan for essential aggregate and sand supply for their region.
“The definition of ‘infrastructure’ in Schedule 5 of the Planning Bill needs extending to include infrastructure supporting services like quarrying (as defined in the National Planning Standards and NPS Infrastructure).”
Schedule 5 also provides for designations that are a set of provisions in a land use plan relating to a project.
“While infrastructure is defined in the schedule, it is not clear that designations extend to quarrying activities which are critical to the infrastructure supply chain,” says the association. It is important that ‘designation provisions’ are available to quarries required for the supply of aggregate and sand.
“In the event that the development of significant infrastructure is fast-tracked, construction materials such as aggregate must be available in quantities to complete the works,” the association adds.
Regulatory relief provisions
While the quarry association supports the principle of ‘property rights’, it is concerned at possible unintended consequences of the regulatory relief provisions in the Bills.
“While not specifically listed, the zoning of land or overlays to provide for quarrying will undoubtably generate claims under these provisions. Councils may seek to recover these costs from resource consent applicants, significantly raising the cost of development contributions.
“The value of land may also be exaggerated by landowners to compensate them for restrictions on land use if they cannot seek regulatory relief.”
The association iterates that quarry materials are not universally available and can only be sourced from where they are located (locationally constrained due to geology).
“Without spatial planning that provides for adequate access to resources at workable locations, there is the real risk of losing access to such proximate resources. The impact of potential claims for regulatory relief may mean that councils avoid making decisions on land use for fear of landowner claims.”
So, zoning, or overlays, in plans to provide for quarrying activity should be exempt from the provisions for regulatory relief, which will give regional spatial planning committees confidence to plan for essential aggregate and sand supply for their region.