35090 (2025). Lan Pham to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform

35090 (2025). Lan Pham to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: How many, if any, councils will be affected by the proposed announcement to limit plan changes, listed by council and type of process affected?

Hon Chris Bishop: Ministry for the Environment officials have conducted a desktop study and are aware of 15 councils that have active plan changes or plan reviews in process. There is a total of 21 notified planning instruments that have not yet reached the hearings stage and are likely to be impacted. A breakdown of these councils and the type of planning instruments affected is provided in Table. Note that this excludes ISPP and SPP planning instruments because they have an automatic exemption under the proposed process and are therefore not affected. Each council will need to assess the content of their notified plans and policy statements against the exemption criteria to determine which parts can continue through the exemption process and which parts should be withdrawn. The Ministry for the Environment will provide guidance on how the exemptions process will work after the legislation is enacted. The intention is that essential plan making can continue. A further 35 planning instruments are at the pre-notification stage and must also be assessed against the exemption criteria to determine whether they should proceed.