The government is getting serous about housing, but it's
interesting how Labour's view of planning regulations has changed now that it
finds itself in the position of being a developer via its Kiwibuild scheme.
It seems the Housing Minister Phil Twyford is now
discovering the very same difficulties builders and developers have confronted
for quite some time. The only difference being, unlike every other poor sod who
is burdened with outrageous planning regulations, the Minister is able to
sidestep the obstacles to get the building work done quicker and at less cost.
Minister Twyford plans to establish a new Ministry of
Housing and Urban Development and will set up an Urban Development Authority
(UDA). The UDA will control between 12 and 15 major government housing
projects, mostly in Auckland, and will in effect replace the local council as
the consenting authority for those developments. In response to some patsy
questions in Parliament last week, the Minister stated he was able to build
affordable housing because they could build them quicker than is possible under
existing planning rules.
It's fantastic that he has finally acknowledged council
delays are a significant problem - it has been a very long time coming. But if
it's good enough for central government to sidestep the local council because
they are so difficult to deal with, then it's good enough for everyone else!
It's an outrage that central government should require everyone else to comply
with cumbersome and costly council planning rules but exempt themselves.
The simple truth is that the free market would be able to
deliver affordable housing if local council planning rules were ‘enabling’
rather than ‘disabling’. Engaging with council over consenting issues has
become a nightmare - even obtaining a building consent takes months rather than
weeks, and in many cases home builders find they also have to obtain resource
consent because council planners have lowered the threshold bar on issues like
vegetation clearance, earthworks, building height, building site, and
"reflective" colours.
I have come to the view that the Resource Management Act has
become so captured by council planning staff that the planning role should be
removed from local councils entirely. The new Ministry of Housing and Urban
Development would seem like the appropriate vehicle to take over the job. While
this still leaves planning in the hands of legions of planners, most with a
self-serving pro-regulation world view which is a problem in itself, at least
central government could exercise greater influence in curtailing their
excesses. Under the current regime, central government has virtually no control
over councils and I think it is fair to say that local councils have lost
control of their planning staff.
Here's an example. Every 10 years local councils are
required to review their District Plan. The process is that staff rewrite the
operative plan which then goes through a public submission process and a
hearing before commissioners. Those commissioners are independent, to the
extend they are not council employees. They are however appointed by council
staff and paid by the council. The commissioners review the plan based on the
submissions made to them and release the proposed plan. Submitters then have
the option of appealing their decision to the Environment Court and engage in
court assisted mediation. Very few private individuals appeal because the court
process is complex, time consuming, and costly.
As a result, appellants are usually well funded
infrastructure providers and organisations that represent a vested interest
like Forest & Bird and the Department of Conservation. It is those
organisations that enter into mediation with "council". It's during
mediation that the rules are rewritten- whatever the parties involved in the
mediation agree becomes planning law.
In this case however, "council" is not
councillors. They delegate the mediation role to their planning staff. So when
the main parties involved in mediation are council staff, Forest and Bird (who
have become increasingly active in planning litigation), and DoC, it's not
difficult to see how district plans have become captured, and why they are now
so restrictive. The travesty here is that councillors have given their planning
staff absolute authority to mediate agreements, without any recourse back to
them for signing off! Although councillors are elected as a watchdog for the
public interest, at no stage have they been involved in any of the mediations
that I have been engaged in.
I was discussing this with a local councillor recently who
seemed genuinely shocked to learn of the changes that had occurred to the proposed
district plan during mediation, and shocked to learn that the changes could
be made without referring them back to councillors!
It seems that councillor did not realise that when he and
his colleagues voted to delegate authority to their staff to engage in
mediation, they also gave away any right to veto or review the changes made
during the mediation.
Therein lies the problem - council staff are smarter than
councillors. If councillors are not in control of their planning process, they
should be removed from the role. It's as simple as that.
Frank
Newman, an investment analyst and former councillor on the Whangarei
District Council, writes a weekly article for Property Plus.
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