Greater Wellington — Versions of the Regional Policy Statement

Operative Regional Policy Statement for the Wellington region

The current version was updated to include reference to the housing bottom lines for the Wellington Tier 1 urban environment, as required by the National Policy Statement on Urban Development… Read more here

Published 19 Aug 2022

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The current version was updated to include reference to the housing bottom lines for the Wellington Tier 1 urban environment, as required by the National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020. Click here for more information on the Insertion of housing bottom lines into the operational Regional Policy Statement.

Date	Change:
19 August 2022	Insertion of housing bottom lines into the operational RPS

Insertion of housing bottom lines into the operational Regional Policy Statement

The housing bottom lines for the Wellington Tier 1 urban environment have been directly inserted into the Regional Policy Statement for the Wellington Region 2013 under section 55(2) of the Resource Management Act (RMA).

The National Policy Statement on Urban Development 2020 requires the housing bottom lines to be inserted into the Regional Policy Statement without using a process under Schedule 1 of the RMA (this means submissions cannot be made on these amendments). The following amendments are effective from 19 August 2022.

The Regional Policy Statement for the Wellington Region has been amended to insert Objective 22A and Table 9A as follows:

Objective 22A:

To achieve sufficient development capacity to meet expected housing demand in the short-medium and long term in any tier 1 urban environment within the Wellington Region, the housing bottom lines in Table 9A are to be met or exceeded in the short-medium and long term in the tier 1 urban environment.

Table 9A: Housing bottom lines in the Wellington Tier 1 urban environment

Tier 1 local authority	Total additional dwellings
Tier 1 local authority	Short-medium term (2021-2031)	Long term (2031-2051)
Hutt City Council	9,708	15,064
Kāpiti Coast District Council	6,123	10,053
Porirua City Council	5,916	8,062
Upper Hutt City Council	4,713	7,510
Wellington City Council	15,089	21,532
Wellington Tier 1 Environment Total	41,549	62,221

The short-medium term (2021- 2031) and long term (2031- 2051) housing bottom lines are drawn from the Wellington Regional Housing and Business Development Capacity Assessment, Housing update – May 2022.

Development of the RPS

The operative Regional Policy Statement (RPS) for the Wellington region was developed by the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), beginning in 2005 with a review of the 1995 RPS and then significant work collaborating with the other councils in the Wellington region.

The initial review culminated with the release of a draft version of the RPS for public comment in March 2008. Details of this process can be found here. Newsletters on the review were also released from 2007 to 2009.

Notification of the RPS

Following the discussions on the draft document, the RPS was officially proposed in March 2009, allowing the public to make formal submissions on the document. The submission process closed on 25 May 2009, with a summary of all submissions being made available on 11 July. On 8 August, the opportunity to provide further submissions closed.

Hearing and decision

Following close of submissions, a staff report was prepared for each chapter, section or provision of the proposed RPS that were submitted on. This report included a summaries and discussions of the submissions, and recommended decisions and changes to the proposed Regional Policy Statement as a result of the submissions – see below for volumes 1 and 2 of the report.

Staff Report: Proposed Regional Policy Statement for the Wellington region 2009 Volume 1

Includes submission summaries, discussion and staff recommendations on submissions on the proposed Regional Policy Statement from chapter 1 through to policy 19. Read more here

Published 01 Nov 2009

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Staff Report: Proposed Regional Policy Statement for the Wellington region 2009 Volume 2

Includes submission summaries, discussion and staff recommendations on submissions on the proposed Regional Policy Statement from policy 20 to end. Read more here

Published 30 Nov 2009

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The proposed RPS then went to hearing between 3 and 16 November 2009. Decisions on submissions made by the hearing panel were approved by the Wellington Regional Council on 18 May 2010 and publicly notified on 22 May 2010. For more information on the hearing, click here.

Information on the “decision version” of the proposed RPS, including changes as a result of decision made at hearing, was released in May 2010 and can be found here.

Appeals on the proposed RPS

Following the release of the “decision version” of the proposed RPS, appeals on fourteen issues in the proposed RPS were lodged with the Environment Court. Between 2010 and 2012, the GWRC worked with mediators at the Environment Court and all appellant and interested parties to resolve these appeals. By the end of 2012, consent orders confirming the resolution of all appeals were received, meaning that the need to for any appeals to be heard in Court was avoided.

A “consent orders version” of the proposed RPS, with consent orders shown in tracked changes, can be found here. Please note that this version is unformatted and contains some numbering and editing errors which have been updated in the final operative version.

Approval of the RPS

Following the resolution of all appeals, the Wellington Region Council confirmed on 26 February 2013 to make the RPS operative in April 2013. Following publishing and printing, the RPS was formally made operative on 24 April 2013.