The Calm Before the Reform?
The Calm Before the Reform?
Thursday 17 July, 2025
Government has announced a landmark proposal in its staged reform of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). The Honourable Chris Bishop announced that Government proposes to amend the current Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Bill (RM Bill) to:
- Require councils to withdraw plan and policy statement reviews and changes which have not yet progressed to hearings;
- Stop councils notifying new plan and policy statement reviews and changes;
- Suspend the requirement that councils undertake plan and policy statement reviews every ten years;
- Suspend the requirement that councils incorporate the national planning standards in their plans and policy statements; and
- Delay the notification of freshwater planning instruments by a further two years (31 December 2027).
Minister Bishop intends that these changes to the RM Bill will avoid councils “wasting their officers’ time and their ratepayers’ money” on unnecessary plan changes in advance of the legislation to be introduced later this year to replace the RMA.
View: RMA Reform: A New Planning Framework with Property Rights at its Core - Tompkins Wake
What does this mean?
New proposals
Councils will be prevented from notifying any new plan and policy statement reviews and changes.
Existing proposals
Councils will be required to withdraw plan and policy statement reviews and changes that have been notified but have not yet progressed to hearing. Withdrawal will be required no later than within 90 days of the RM Bill being passed into law. Any plan and policy statement reviews or changes with a hearing date scheduled within 5 days of the RM Bill passing into law will be exempt.
Any new rules in plan reviews and changes which have immediate legal effect on notification under s86B of the RMA will continue to have that status until the plan review or change is withdrawn.
To ensure the public remains fully informed of what plan rules apply, Councils will be required to publicly notify the status of each plan review and change 90 days after the RM Bill is passed into law.
Exemptions
In order to enable Government’s clear priorities, a limited number of new and existing plan and policy statement reviews and changes will be exempt from the withdrawal and suspension provisions. An initial list of exemptions includes:
- Streamlined Planning Processes and intensification streamlined planning processes;
- Private plan changes under Schedule 2 of the RMA;
- Changes to implement new national direction provisions where the national direction specifies implementation is to occur through a plan-making process prior to 31 December 2027;
- Plan changes and reviews directed by the Minister or called in as a proposal of national significance;
- Proposed plans, or parts of proposed plans, relating to the management of natural hazards; and
- Plan changes required by Treaty of Waitangi settlement legislation.
A final list of exemptions is expected to be released next month.
Councils will also be able to apply to the Minister for the Environment for an exemption within three months of the RM Bill being passed into law.
When will these changes take effect?
The RM Bill is currently before Parliament awaiting its Second Reading. The Government expects the RM Bill to pass into law before the end of 2025.
We will continue to keep a watching brief and update you on the RM Bill as it progresses through its Second and Third Readings over the next few months.
