One law for all urban planning backed by NBR poll

The Productivity Commission's suggestion there should be just one law for urban planning and resource management has been given overwhelming support by NBR readers.

In its report, Better Urban Planning, out yesterday, the commission says the ground-breaking RMA has become a weak point in the planning system and took a blue skies approach to what a future urban planning system could look like.  It said changing the urban planning legislation alone won't fix a complex and often unclear system.

In an NBR poll, 88% of respondents voted for the idea of a single planning law governing the built and natural environment while 12% were against the idea.

Although the commission's report doesn't specifically recommend repealing the 27-year-old RMA, Finance Minister Steven Joyce said he was pleased it identified replacing it and other statutes with one single planning law.

Just last week the Maori Party achieved its aims of being involved in RMA decisions at council tables without having to be democratically elected. The government’s Resource Legislation Amendment Bill is now likely to pass its third reading and become law.

The commission's suggestion of one single law won backing from several quarters including the Environment Defence Society, which has called for a royal commission of inquiry into major reforms so the process is de-politicised.

The Property Council and the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) also said the report was a step in the right direction though EMA chief executive Kim Campbell said it's key the government is "bold enough to use this report as a launching pad to create a much broader, apolitical process, to identify a better way to manage the built and natural environments."

The Labour and Greens parties are also increasingly convinced the RMA needs a full review, with the commission also recommending reform of the Local Government and Land Transport Acts.

The commission’s report contained 64 recommendations, including a substantial clarification in statutory objectives, a stronger role for spatial planning, timely, fairer and comprehensive review of plans by independent hearings panels, more tools for councils to fund infrastructure and better stewardship of the planning system.

It also says an independent hearings panel should be set up to check that plans meet legislative requirements, to hear from residents and stakeholders and to resolve remaining conflicts of views about plans. The Environment Court would continue to have a role in hearing appeals on points of law.