The hearing for the Belmont temporary grazing licence will run across two days on 5 and 7 October 2026. The hearing will be held at the Greater Wellington office at 100 Cuba Street, Wellington.
21 submissions on the proposed licence were received. Greater Wellington has nominated Jason Jones as independent person to hear submissions, run the hearing process, and produce a recommendation report on the proposed grazing licence for Greater Wellington to make the final decision.
For the full hearing process details including key dates for material exchange please refer to Minute 1 of the Independent Commissioner.
Independent person bio
Jason is an experienced and accredited Independent Commissioner and Chair. He also has more than 20 years’ professional experience in urban and environmental planning roles with both local government and in consultancy. His roles have afforded practical experience with district, regional, unitary and national planning and policy instruments across Aotearoa New Zealand under the Resource Management Act 1991, and with the related provisions and processes under the Wildlife Act 1953, Local Government Act 2002 and Reserves Act 1977. His recent commissioner and planning roles traverse plan-making, climate resilience and natural hazard management projects, wetland restoration projects, urban park redevelopment planning, and a variety of urban development proposals among other topics.
Minutes
Belmont Grazing Licence - Minute 1 of the Independent Commissioner
The next steps in the hearing process are:
- The Reporting Officer for Greater Wellington will summarise and advise on the written submissions in their Hearing Report, which will be published on this page and circulated to submitters by 5pm Friday 18 September 2026.
- Submitters who indicated they would like to speak to their written submission will be contacted to confirm their attendance at the hearing by 5pm Wednesday 23 September 2026.
- The Applicant is asked to provide hearing materials including any overview report, evidence, or other material to the hearing administrator by 3pm Friday 25 September 2026.
- Any submitter who wishes to call evidence from a qualified expert must provide the hearing administrator with this material by 3pm Friday 25 September 2026.
- Any submitter who intendeds to have legal representation at the hearing must provide any legal submission to the hearing administrator by 3pm Thursday 1 October 2026.
- Any submitter who intendeds to speak to four pages or more of written material at the hearing must provide a copy of that material to hearing administrator by 3pm Thursday 1 October 2026.
- The independent person will hear submissions and consider all written and oral submissions.
- The independent person will then produce a report containing their recommendations on the proposed grazing licence and provide this to Greater Wellington.
- A final decision on whether to grant the proposed temporary grazing licence for Belmont Regional Park will be made by the Group Manager Environment (for Greater Wellington as the administering body), after giving full consideration to all submissions.
Further information about the hearing process, including how submissions will be used going forward, can be found in this document:
Belmont Grazing Licence Submissions and Hearing Process
