Frank Newman: Sidestepping planners

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.

Frank Newman: No trust in landowners

Last week commissioners began hearing submissions on what is the most significant change in Whangarei District Council planning rules in decades. Alarmingly, few people actually realise the new rules are in the pipeline. Hardly a word has been mentioned in the media, and the Council itself did not hold any public meetings to inform the public of the changes.

Ten plan changes are proposed - affecting every landowner outside of the built up urban environment. The plan changes divide the rural (countryside) area into seven "Environments" with "Resource area" overlays, each with their own rules. (Plan changes PC85, 85A, 85B, 85C, 85D, 86A, 86B. 87, 102, and 114.)

Frank Newman: RMA changes on way

In 1991 the Resource Management Act (RMA) was heralded as a visionary piece of legislation; one that would allow communities to enhance their future well-being while protecting what we have for future generations. Its political architects, Geoffrey Palmer and Simon Upton, were considered enlightened forward thinkers. It was also at the forefront of what would be a number of effect-based acts. In simple terms, the RMA replaced a bunch of Acts that prescribed what you could do, with one that said a landowner could do petty much anything on their property, provided the effects on the environment were no more than minor or could be avoided, remedied, or mitigated.

Time has shown those enabling visionary ideals to be fanciful and foolish hopes. The RMA has become disabling and a very large gravy train for the planning industry that has grown up around it. Even worse, the RMA has handed radical activist organisations (like the Environmental Defence Society and the government's own Department of Conservation) an effective weapon which they have cleverly utilised to promote their own anti-private property rights agendas.

Frank Newman: Relentless planners and you

Planners are never satisfied, and never give up. Central and local government have departments full of them - all charged with the task of regulating what landowners can't do on their land. Increasingly, permitted use rights once held by landowners are being replaced with discretionary rights exercised by council planning staff (and enforced at the landowners cost).

Underlying it all is preservation and a (false) presumption that landowners can't be trusted to do the right thing for future generations. Fortunately, Neanderthals had a more enlightened view of innovation and preservation.

Planners are dangerous people - dangerous in that they elevate their own perceptions of the world above those they are supposed to serve. In an ideal world landowners would be protected from such people by their elected representatives. They are our line of defence against socialist planners and the like of radical environmentalists such as the Department of Conservation (DoC); that's why we elect them.