Why planning reforms have people concerned about the Waitākere Ranges and development

Source: Radio New Zealand

Explainer – Could government planning reforms lead to more development in the Waitākere Ranges? Here’s why locals are concerned.

The Waitākere Ranges are one of the jewels of Auckland, encompassing thousands of hectares of dense coastal forest hills and beaches.

But many in the community are concerned that the impending replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) may loosen longstanding protections for the area.

“You can’t have growth at all costs,” said Waitākere Ranges Local Board deputy chair Greg Presland, who has organised a petition to amend the RMA reform legislation currently before a parliamentary select committee.

Here’s what the debate is about.

Why are people concerned?

The Waitākere Ranges cover about 27,000ha of public and private land nestled in the hills, foothills and coast around West Auckland, including the Waitākere Ranges Regional Park which takes up about 60 percent of the land. Its borders include communities like Titirangi, Piha, Laingholm, Oratia and Karekare and it’s a home to threatened kauri trees.

It’s a place people are passionate about, and a variety of groups including Forest & Bird, Environmental Defence Society, The Tree Council, the Waitākere Ranges Protection Society and others are wanting to ensure the ranges are explicitly protected in RMA reforms.

In 2008, the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act was put into place. It’s meant to address concerns about the effect of development and preserve the natural character and cultural heritage of the area. That legislation cross-references the soon to be replaced 1991 Resource Management Act – which also specifically mentions the Waitākere Act and the similar Hauraki Gulf Marine Park Act 2000.

But neither one of those acts is referred to in the replacement Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill, which Presland has written “would render large parts of the Heritage Area Act meaningless”.

The Planning Bill will lay out how land can be used and developed including planning for housing growth, while the Natural Environment Bill will lay out the rules for managing the use of natural resources and protecting the environment.

Without the Heritage Area Act being specifically mentioned in the new legislation, many Waitākere locals and groups are concerned it could lead to creeping changes.

In its submission to Parliament, the Waitākere Ranges Local Board said leaving the Waitākere Ranges outside of the RMA reform “would strip consent processes, Regional Spatial Plans and Land Use Plans of their duty to protect the ranges”.

“In short: the ranges could be weakened by a thousand cuts. Subdivision of the ranges would be more likely and decision makers would not have to have as one of their guiding principles the protection of the ranges.”

A petition to Parliament Presland started, ‘Save the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area’, had nearly hit its goal of 6000 signatures as of Monday.

“My impression is that the vast majority appreciate and support the Heritage Act,” he said.

“I live in the area and want it protected,” one person wrote in signing the petition, while another said, “I want future generations to be able to feel that same connection and find the same peace of mind in the Waitākeres: it is a good antidote to the madness of the modern world!”

Around 150 people also turned up at a recent local community meeting about the issue, Presland said.

Sir Bob Harvey, a former mayor of Waitākere City, told that meeting, “I never believed we would have to save the Waitākere Ranges all over again.”

Presland said the exclusion of the ranges from the proposed legislation may not be intentional, but the response indicates how important the ranges are seen to many in Auckland.

“I think [it’s an] omission – the government doesn’t have enough people working on these particular reforms. But it’s crazy that it’s got this far without it being addressed.”

What does the government say?

The gist so far from the government is that they’re aware of the concerns and will consider it as the legislation progresses.

In official transcriptions of Question Time in Parliament last week, Housing and Infrastructure Minister Chris Bishop, who is also the minister responsible for RMA reform, acknowledged the 2008 act.

“To maintain the intent of the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act under the new planning system, consequential amendments will be needed, and the Environment Committee will be considering that as part of its scrutiny of the bills,” he said.

Bishop said “around 100” consequential amendments would be required for the RMA reforms legislation.

“It’s not just about the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act, it’s about 100 other pieces of legislation that require consequential amendments, which the select committee will be considering.”

Presland said, “They’ve acknowledged there’s a problem,” and said the public campaign has drawn a lot of engagement.

“I’ve heard that their email boxes have been filled up,” he said of ministers and MPs.

Te Pāti Māori MP for Tāmaki Makaurau Oriiini Kaipara asked Bishop during Question Time, “What assurances, if any, can he give to the people of Tāmaki Makaurau that his RMA reforms will not impact the protection of the Waitākere Ranges?”

Kaipara referred to “strong opposition from local communities and mana whenua” and pushed Bishop to answer “what specific safeguards, if any, will remain to prevent irreversible environmental degradation” in the ranges.

Bishop referred to previous discussion on the legislation and responded to Kaipara, “If she was listening, she would find out that that’s not what I’m doing.”

What about property owners and their rights?

“When this act was designed, we had this basic mantra was people could keep their existing rights,” Presland said.

However, Auckland councillor for Waitākere Ward Ken Turner wrote on social media recently that while he does support the RMA reforms specifically including references to the Heritage Act, he also believed it is currently difficult for some locals to make changes to their private properties and called for more relief support for homeowners.

“Is the protection of the Waitākere Ranges under threat because of changes to the RMA,” he wrote. “No! Because it is not the rules and regulations of a few politicians and bureaucrats that protect the Waitākere Ranges. It is the respect and effort of the many Aucklanders who love, live in, and visit the area.”

Turner wrote that he supports establishing a regulatory relief process – which the government defined by saying, “A council must provide for regulatory relief when a proposed plan includes certain kinds of rules that are likely to significantly impact a landowner’s reasonable use of their land.”

That compensation could include things like cash payouts, rates relief, bonus development rights, land swaps or other methods.

Turner described “a complex tension between ‘character’ and ‘use’ across the 10,500 hectares of private land within the heritage area”. He said that some rules have been set aside for public projects such as the estimated $1 billion-plus expansion of the Huia Water Treatment Plant or trail walkways and infrastructure in the area.

“For local people, who are the backbone of Waitākere Ranges protection, undertaking even the smallest types of improvements to their private properties, like building a deck or adding extra car parking space, comes with consenting processes and costs designed to prohibit,” Turner wrote.

During the Question Time in Parliament, ACT leader David Seymour asked if the changes would permit long-awaited developments for some locals.

“Is there any chance that these changes might allow families with a horse paddock in Henderson, where they’ve been trying to build homes for decades, to actually provide those homes that would do a lot more for mana whenua and many others complaining than any of the carping we’ve heard in this question so far?”

But Presland called the idea of introducing regulatory relief a “significant concern”.

“Most of the Heritage Area is covered by a significant ecological area overlay and if compensation was demanded by landowners this would be a significant liability on the part of council.

“As a concept it is retrograde and would lessen the action that council could take to protect the environment. It suggests that financial considerations could top environmental considerations and it ignores the collective benefit that a healthy environment provides us all.”

How does current legislation protect the ranges?

The 2008 act came into place at the request of the former Waitākere City Council and “puts in place a number of measures to ensure that the core nature of the area is protected”.

Under the act, monitoring reports are issued every five years on the state of the heritage area’s environment.

“It’s been indicating that it’s been working as planned,” Presland said. “I think there’s been 700 or 800 new dwellings in the area since the act started, so it’s progressing as practical.”

Last year, the Waitākere Ranges Deed of Acknowledgement was also signed, which “gives practical effect” to the rights of tangata whenua laid out in the 2008 legislation.

That deed aims to create a framework for closer collaboration between Te Kawerau ā Maki, Auckland Council, the Department of Conservation and local communities, although it was also criticised by NZ First’s Shane Jones and ACT leader David Seymour who had concerns over “co-governance”.

Are there broader fears for the Waitākere Ranges and development?

“The heritage area fulfils a number of functions,” Presland said.

It’s also a major water catchment area with five large water supply dams. “We get 17 percent of the city’s water from it,” he said.

It was also hit hard by the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Weekend flooding, Cyclone Gabrielle and other recent storms, with roads destroyed and many homes damaged or lost in landslips.

“Titirangi, you can see after the last storm, it’s very fragile. There’s a real practical reason to stop further development here.”

Presland said he has heard a lot of concern about possible “boundary creep” into the heritage area.

“The boundary is the place where the biggest issues are. You hold that line or if you don’t hold that line it’s just going to keep happening and it’s death by a thousand cuts.”

Presland said there is a benefit to the entire community for landowners to keep their properties forested and in good health.

“A landowner may insist on their right to cut down trees but this may affect the stability of neighbouring properties let alone their own. This is one of the primary reasons why the significant ecological area overlay was established.

“To require council to pay compensation in a situation where protection needs to be enhanced could have a direct effect on neighbours and communities.

“Protecting the environment is not only preserving a nice to have. It is ensuring that people in communities do not have their local areas degraded.”

Auckland has been grappling with housing intensification plans which would add more than a million homes in the next 30 years. Presland said those plans should focus on central suburbs like nearby Glen Eden.

“We’ve seen significant intensification around Glen Eden for instance. If you want a compact city that’s growing, that’s the way you do it. …You intensify around the rail stations and you protect your countryside.”

Presland also expressed concern that the new legislation would give too much power to the minister responsible.

Clause 204 of the Planning Bill notes that ,”The Minister may direct a local authority to take any action that the Minister considers necessary to achieve an outcome specified by the Minister in the direction.”

“From what I can see there is no comparable RMA power,” Presland wrote in the local board’s submission on the bill. “The level of ministerial power is on the face of it is extreme and the local board does not understand the justification for this power.”

“We never anticipated a minister would have that sort of power when the act was designed,” Presland told RNZ.

During his remarks in Parliament last week, Bishop said he has seen a lot of feedback on the Waitākere Ranges.

“It is true that I have had a number of emails around the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act seeking that it be entrenched in law,” Bishop said.

“I’ve also had emails from people who actually live there who wish to do simple things with their property, like subdivide to put another house on, who find themselves unable to do that.”

In her remarks in Parliament last week, Kaipara asked Bishop whether he would accept any responsibility for “irreversible damage” to the ranges if protections are weakened.

Bishop responded by saying the overall RMA reforms would create “the prosperity that we have been denied as a country because of the straightjacket of the RMA.”

“If the government’s planning reforms work as intended, I will take responsibility for the abundant development opportunities that will land in this country.”

What’s next?

The select committee’s report is due to be presented on 26 June. The next step is a second reading of the bill and possible further amendments could then be considered.

Presland said the community response shows the keen interest in the future of the Waitākere Ranges.

“I’ve been really impressed, actually. People have shared the hell out of the petition on social media and everyone’s talking about it.”

Presland said the completed petition would be presented soon, and other meetings are also scheduled with ministers.

“We’re trying to figure out the optimal time. So the select committee are going through reviews now, probably next week or two is the optimal time to present it to them.”

In the House last week, Bishop maintained that the select committee will consider all possible amendments before the legislation moves forward.

“What’s important is that the select committee … work its way through that, consider the consequential amendments made, and I look forward to the report back to the House.”

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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand