Developing a new regional plan – Q & A

What is the purpose of a regional plan?

Regional plans contain the rules and policies that govern the use of natural resources and manage the effects of that use. Examples of this include managing what is discharged to land or water, what amount of water can be taken and used from rivers, streams and groundwater, and what contaminants can be allowed to enter the atmosphere.

The Regional Coastal Plan is the only mandatory regional plan; other regional plans are prepared at the discretion of the Council. Greater Wellington currently has four other regional plans – Regional Plan for Discharges to Land, Regional Air Quality Management Plan, Regional Soil Plan and Regional Freshwater Plan.

Why are you doing this now? Aren’t the current plans good enough?

Under the Resource Management Act, reviews of plans must commence 10 years after they have become operative. The first of the current suite of regional plans was formally adopted by Council in December 1999, so we started our review in 2009.

What are you doing differently this time?

GW has a stated commitment to managing catchments in an integrated way, so we will be developing one integrated plan, instead of the set of five that we currently have, thus recognising the inter-relationships between different activities, whether they are on land or water.

This is a plan that we intend to develop “with” the community rather than “for” the community so the final content of the plan will be a result of intensive engagement and discussion with many different parts of the regional community.

How long will it be before the new plan is in place?

Because of our commitment to engage fully with the community, it might take up to three years to develop a proposed regional plan for public submissions. We believe that investing the time in this process will achieve the best outcome. We expect the new plan will be ready for public submissions some time later in 2013. See our regional plan timeline.

What’s already happened?

Last year Greater Wellington held 15 community workshops, meetings with mana whenua iwi and local councils and an online survey to get people’s views on the state of natural resources and on the problems and opportunities with how natural resources are currently managed. The results of those workshops are published in our public engagement report.

What’s happening now and how can people participate?

We’ve developed a range of issues and goals that incorporate people’s views from last year’s workshops, online survey, mana whenua iwi and council meetings as well as information from our science and monitoring and the stock takes of our existing policies. We want people to tell us if our proposals are on the right track.

We’re encouraging people to attend a community drop in session during November – these are being held at the following venues:

Table of workshop events

People can also complete an online survey about natural resources from early November.

What are issues and goals?

Issues are problems and opportunities for the regional plan to address (Identified through science and monitoring, public feedback and policy reviews)

Goals are statements describing what should be achieved in the plan through policies, methods and rules.

Click here to view a list of all the issues and goals that are being considered for the new regional plan.

What is the status of the current regional plans that Greater Wellington has in place?

All existing regional plans and the rules contained within them will remain in place and operative until the new regional plan is endorsed by the Council.

What is Te Upoko Taiao – Natural Resource Management Committee?

Greater Wellington established Te Upoko Taiao – Natural Resource Management Committee to oversee the development of the new regional plan. The Committee comprises seven appointed members from our seven iwi across the region and seven elected councillors, and builds on the Charter of Understanding the Council signed with regional iwi 15 years ago and the positive relationship the council has with regional iwi.