The Natural and Built Environment Act (“NBEA”) and Spatial Planning Act (“SPA”) received Royal Assent on 23 August 2023, formally passing them into law. [Refer to our most recent articles on the reforms here and here.] This marks the end of an intensive and controversial legislative process, and the beginning of the Acts as reality – requiring all system users to grapple with their implementation.
The NBEA is the main replacement for the Resource Management Act (“RMA”) and provides for its eventual repeal. The SPA provides for the development of regional spatial strategies – long-term strategies intended to coordinate and integrate planning decisions.
While it will take a decade to fully transition to the new regime, a number of changes have immediate effect. These include:
Fast-track consenting: The fast-track consenting process is similar to the Covid-19 fast-track regime. It is available for certain housing and infrastructure developments.
Penalties: Penalties for offences increase significantly to $1million for individuals and $10 million for companies.
Maximum duration of new freshwater consents: An interim new maximum duration will apply to new consents to take, use, dam or divert freshwater and consents to discharge any contaminant to freshwater, being no more than five years after allocation methods in the region’s first NBE Plans come into effect. There are some exceptions for certain infrastructure activities.
Management of contaminated land: The new regime introduces a ‘polluter pays’ scheme, meaning that people who cause or allow land to be contaminated can be held accountable.
Requiring authorities: The entities that can apply to become a requiring authority have been expanded.
The transition will be rolled out on a region-by-region basis and is expected to take up to ten years. The National Planning Framework will be developed over the coming years, following which regions can begin to develop their regional spatial strategies and NBE plans. Each region will essentially transition to the new regime when its NBE Plan comes into effect.
However, the future of the reforms remains uncertain, with National continuing to state that it will repeal the reforms by Christmas should it win the upcoming election…watch this space!
The NBEA can be found here and the SPA here. Please feel free to get in touch with us should you wish to discuss the new regime in more detail.