Paul C
Paul C is a Registered Surveyor and a Fellow of the NZIS.
After qualifying, he ran his own practice for 10 years before he was
asked to join the Planning Tribunal for an initial 5-year term. He
stayed for 32. The Tribunal became the Environment Court where he was a Commissioner until he retired nearly 10 years ago.
So what was wrong with the old Town and Country Planning Act 1977? Perhaps it was just the case that it was getting a bit long in the tooth and was changed because apparently change must be good?
It did seem to be working though. Under it a council prepared a District Plan and in turn that required a specific officer to have control over it. Sometimes that was simply the County Clerk but more often than not it fell to the City, Borough or County Engineer. If a council was in the fortunate position of having its own surveyor then it likely fell to him.
In those days Auckland University had a Town Planning course and qualified surveyors or engineers could enrol in it as an add-on to their existing qualification. It was a one year course and many took up the offer, usually funded by their employer, be that a council, the Ministry of Works or the Lands and Survey Dept. Some surveyors did fund themselves but they were few.
A prominent lecturer at the university was the late Jim Dart. Jim was himself a Registered Surveyor who, after qualifying decided to study town planning. He devoted the rest of his life to planning, leading the department and then serving for some years as a well-respected member of the Planning Tribunal.
When the demand began for suitably qualified people in the local authorities it was these people that applied and won the positions. Some local councils persisted with using their existing staff but they too eventually felt obliged to engage specialists for the job.
So what exactly did they do? Firstly they had to ensure that the local authority had an up-to-date District Plan. Once that was established they had to administer the plan and consider any applications made under it and recommend to their council whether to allow it, allow it with specific conditions, or to simply refuse it. At the same time they would be preparing for the next plan, by investigating suggested changes, suggesting changes themselves, or even determining that at the next change date the existing plan should simply be rolled-over.
The theory was simple. The plan specified what could be done, and where. It (the plan) was available to everyone after going through a public submission process. Some things could be done as of right such as building a house in a residential zone although other consents could be required such as building permits.
Simply put, any application that was not straightforward had to be considered either as a “Specified Departure” or as a “Conditional Use”. Both of those names are self-explanatory.
Specified Departure was a specific approval to do something outside what was provided for under the plan. When granted this would entail some specific conditions being attached to the consent.
Conditional Use was the approval to do something that was basically in accordance with the plan and might be granted but only if it complied with some specific condition(s). Examples of that are perhaps buildings that for some reason might impinge on side yards or maybe exceed the allowable height. Maybe exceed the allowable coverage?
Of course, a council was also at liberty to refuse an application.
As would be expected any decision of a council could always be appealed. For many years there had been a body known as the Town and Country Planning Appeal Board. When changes were made to the Town and Country Planning Act in 1977 the Appeal Board was abolished and replaced with a Tribunal which was known as the Planning Tribunal. Initially the Planning Tribunal consisted of three divisions, one in Auckland, one in Wellington and one in Christchurch. The Tribunal heard and decided all appeals and their decision was final, although it could still be challenged but only on points of law.
Each division consisted of a magistrate (which soon became a District Court Judge) and three lay-members. Specific qualifications and fields of knowledge for the lay members were specified in the Act itself. In 1980 a further division of the Tribunal was created.
As an aside here, in the mid to late 1980s, with four judges there should (could) have been twelve lay-members but there were moves afoot to reduce the number of lay-members in each division to two. There were at that time a total of nine, four of whom (if you include Jim Dart mentioned earlier) were Registered Surveyors. Included as well were a Town Clerk and a City Engineer, both retired.
The enthusiasm with which the Resource Management Act 1991 was greeted was large. This was touted as bringing in a whole new concept – one could now do pretty much anything so long as the environment was not adversely affected. It was a world first and its results would be tremendous.
Meantime the Planning Tribunal continued and did so until it was transformed into a full court to be known as The New Zealand Environment Court. The existing District Court Judges assigned to the Planning Tribunal became Environment Court Judges and the lay-members became Environment Court Commissioners.
It is not for me to say whether all this has been successful or not but there is a big call for change. What started out with some straightforward aims did seem to blossom for a while, but then it became self-consuming and bloated.
Councils’ planning departments have expanded beyond any of the wildest projections and everything seems to be difficult to the point of being impossible. It seems that to do anything there are too many bridges to cross. Hearings, not only of applications but also for appeals, are now so complicated and expensive that they are avoided as much as possible. The sad fact is that people with the available funds can thus win by default. That can work either for or against a development.
So I ask, why do we have such a huge number of planners? Do we really need them all?
40 years ago planners were few, with the task mainly falling to specialising surveyors or engineers. Today every council has a vast number, all paid for by the ratepayers. If they are all there because of the RMA will they all vanish when the Act is repealed?
I thus await whatever it is that is to replace the 30-year-old Resource Management Act. Will it be something that curbs the monster which we have become saddled with or will it be something that creates yet another hydra?
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