Reform Series - Rethinking the way we manage effects
Reform Series - Rethinking the way we manage effects
Friday 20 February, 2026
A key tenet of the Government’s new resource management system is to make it “easier and cheaper” to deliver housing and other infrastructure. To achieve this, both the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill propose numerous changes to the way in which we assess and manage effects under the new legal regime.
Scope of effects
Under the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), the range of effects on the environment which can be considered by a consent authority are wide ranging.
In order to introduce a more “targeted and proportionate” approach, the Planning Bill proposes to reduce the range of environmental effects subject to assessment (and therefore regulatory control). The following effects are proposed to be excluded from a consent authority’s consideration:
- The internal and external layout of buildings on a site;
- Negative effects of development on trade competitors;
- Retail distribution effects;
- The demand for, or financial viability of, a project (with some exceptions);
- The visual amenity of a use, development, or building in relation to its character, appearance, aesthetic qualities, or other physical feature;
- Views from private property;
- Effects on landscape (except to protect outstanding natural landscapes and features);
- Effects of setting a precedent; and
- Matters where the land use effects of an activity are dealt with under other legislation.
This change is not limited solely to the consideration of applications for planning consent lodged under the new legal regime. The Planning Bill proposes, one month after it receives Royal Assent, to amend section 104 of the RMA to prevent consent authorities, during the transition from the RMA to the new Planning Act, having regard to any of the effects listed above and to enable them to disregard a national environmental standard, plan or proposed plan regulating any of those excluded effects for applications for land use and subdivision consents lodged under the RMA.
Thresholds for public and targeted notification
In addition to reducing the range of environmental effects managed under the new legal regime, both Bills propose to introduce a higher threshold before those effects need to be notified for submissions.
For a person to be considered an ‘affected person’ under either Bill for the purposes of targeted notification, the adverse effects of the activity on the person must be “more than minor”. This is a higher threshold than the current limited notification test in section 95E of the RMA which applies the “minor (or more than minor)” threshold.
When considering under the Planning Bill whether an activity will have adverse effects that are more than minor on the built environment requiring public notification, a consent authority will be expressly allowed to consider whether the adverse effects are consistent with the character, intensity or scale of effects anticipated by a land use plan or spatial plan.
These changes, together with the reduced range of effects that can be considered by consent authorities, are intended to reduce both the number of consents required under the new legal regime and the number of applications requiring notification.
Other proposed changes
- Under both Bills, ‘less than minor’ adverse effects will only be regulated where they give rise to a cumulative effect that is ‘greater than less than minor’; this may mean ‘at least minor’ but caselaw is likely to be required to determine this given it is a term not used in the RMA.
- When considering the effects of an activity under either Bill, a consent authority must now consider how the adverse effects are to be:
- Avoided, minimised, or reduced (where practicable); and
- Offset or compensated for (where appropriate).
- In certain situations, national instruments can set out the way in which adverse effects should be managed, including:
- How, and in what order, adverse effects are to be avoided, minimised or remedied, offset or compensated for; and
- When it is practicable or appropriate for adverse effects to be avoided, minimised, reduced, offset or compensated for.
Next steps for the Bills
The Bills are now with Parliament’s Environment Committee which will consider public submissions on the Bills before reporting its recommendations to Parliament on responses to those submissions. This report, due on 26 June 2026, should provide insight into the final shape of the Bills.
We will keep a watching brief as the Bills progress through their Second and Third Readings.
