TWO NEW SUBMISSIONS 

Two new Bills are in progress through the Environment Committee to which we have made submissions.

These two Bills preface a major reset of the planning and environmental laws currently embedded in the Resource Management Act.  They comprise a Planning Bill to manage land use and urban development and a Natural Environment Bill designed to put environmental limits in place within which land use and development plans and consents should operate.  Taken together, and if enacted, these two Bills are likely to shape New Zealand’s development and environmental management settings for years ahead.  They contain some major and contentious matters:

–  Regulatory relief (where compensation can be payable to landowners whose “reasonable use” of their land is impeded);

–  Environmental limits – specifying land and aquatic ecological thresholds that must not be crossed or adversely impacted by development  – which are a good idea but whose implementation is unclear and is somewhat compromised by provisions in the land use Planning Bill.

–  Standing and Public Participation – where environmental groups such as ours are mostly excluded from, or limited in relation to, plan and consent decision making.

The Planning Bill includes requirements for Spatial Plans that will set out where development can go and what infrastructure is needed, and when, to support various phases of urban development.  We strongly support these provisions but we consider they must operate within, and clearly set-out, environmental limits.

Our submissions also have introductory summaries which give readers a good idea of the issues they traverse.

We have asked the Select Committee to be heard.

View the submissions here: <Planning Bill: Submission>  <Natural Environment Bill: Submission>

(Posted: 17 February 2026)

(You can also view them on our Advise and Submissions page where all our previous submissions can be found)