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Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Council's housing plan knocked back
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger says a government knock-back on its three-year battle to create a custom carve-out of national housing intensification rules feels like a "kick in the guts", but others welcome the certainty of the move. On Friday, Minister for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop issued a final decision on 17 of 20 recommendations the city council had referred after rejecting recommendations from an independent panel on the council's plan to shape a bespoke Christchurch response to national housing density policy. Bishop rejected the bulk of the council's proposals. In 2021, the then-government released its National Policy Statement on Urban Development, a plan to ramp up housing intensification across most urban areas but focused on the five high growth centres of Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch, amid bi-partisan support for the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, though the National Party would later withdraw its backing. The bill contained Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), which detail what development can occur without the need for resource consent, public notification and consultation in the areas identified as most in need of housing intensification. Those rules were intended to apply across all residential zones in those identified cities, unless "qualifying matters" made intensification inappropriate. In 2022, the Christchurch council voted to reject the standards, despite warnings a commissioner could be appointed. Instead, it began several years of consultation, submissions and hearings on Plan Change 14 - its proposed changes to the district plan that would give effect to the Medium Density Residential Standards, but in a way it claimed better acknowledged the character and context of the South Island city. The council temporarily halted the process following the last election, and was later granted an extension until the end of this year on some aspects of the plan change. Bishop declined a further extension request last month. The council's stance culminated in an Independent Hearing Panel (IHP), which reported back in the middle of last year. The council accepted the majority of the IHP's recommendations, which were incorporated into the district plan. But it rejected various aspects of the proposed plan, making 20 counter-recommendations that went to the Minister. Bishop announced on Friday he had rejected 14 of the council's recommendations, accepted three and deferred his decision on three more. The decision means some parts of the city will be zoned higher-density housing and taller buildings, while the council will not be allowed to use several different "qualifying matters" to refuse consents even in high density zones - most controversially, one that hinged on the impediment of sunlight and proposed the Garden City should get an exemption because its southern location meant sunlight angles differ. Bishop's announcement locks in changes for areas in and around the CBD, and the "town centres" of Riccarton, Hornby and Linwood, which will be zoned high density residential. Taller buildings will be allowed within 600 metres of shopping areas in some suburbs - 32m (around 10 storeys high) for the Hornby shopping area, 14m for high density residential zones surrounding the shopping area, 22m (around six storeys) for Linwood's town centre, and 14m for high density residential zones around it. The council's bids to create qualifying matters on the basis of sunlight access, recession planes (a line or plane which limits how close a building can be to a property boundary), or by location - such as 'the City Spine' (major transport routes) or Riccarton Bush - also failed. Nor did Bishop accept areas around Peer St in Ilam or the Papanui War Memorial Avenues should be excluded from density rules or allowed special consideration. The council proposals Bishop did accept were Local Centre Intensification Precinct - intensification around eight of the city's commercial centres, including Barrington, Prestons and Wigram; increasing the building height overlay for the former stock yards site on Deans Avenue (a prime spot adjacent to Hagley Park, currently used as car parking for the Christchurch Hospital shuttle service) to up to 36m; and allowing high density residential zoning for Milton St (the site of the Milton St substation, which Fletchers plans to build 80 homes on). All other council alternative recommendations were rejected in favour of the hearing panel recommendations. Bishop has deferred decision-making for the heritage listing for Daresbury - a historic home in Fendalton; Antonio Hall - a derelict historic home on Riccarton Rd; and Piko Character Area - a Riccarton residential neighbourhood made up of many original state houses from the 1930s - until the council decided on the underlying zoning. "In putting these decisions forward to the government, we obviously wanted to get all of our alternative recommendations approved. So to only have three of them get the tick is a kick in the guts," Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger said. "This plan change has been a huge undertaking for our city, and we've said right the way through that we want to get the best outcome we possibly can. This doesn't feel like the best outcome. "To that end, we'll keep working hard as a council, and there are still major decisions yet to be made when it comes to housing density and planning across much of Christchurch, so watch this space." New Zealand has one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the OECD. But urbanist collective Greater Ōtautahi welcomed the minister's decision. Chairperson M Grace-Stent said it finally brought some certainty after years of delays, decision-making, submissions and hearing panels. "What we're most excited about is that Ōtautahi Christchurch is set up for the future, it has certainty around where it can grow and where it can continue to develop in the future." The decision will not mean apartment buildings spring up overnight, they said. "It's still going to be a slow developing process, just as our cities always continually change. This is just another step." The city also needed to turn its attention to improving public transport, the collective believed. "Ōtautahi Christchurch definitely needs a re-evaluation of its transport system. We've been calling for the introduction of mass rapid transport across the city to support and facilitate the kind of growth and development that needs to happen, and to make sure that everyone has a choice about how they're getting around the city and aren't forced to just pick cars." Grace-Stent said the debate touched on ideas embedded in the national psyche about how and where New Zealanders live. They said the quarter-acre dream of a stand-alone house on a large section was unsustainable and did not not always produce greater social outcomes. "Not everyone wants to live the exact same lifestyle - allowing more housing to be built allows people to make that choice for themselves. So if people want to be living on a quarter-acre block, they're allowed to, and if people want to be living in an apartment close to their friends and amenities and where they work, they also have that choice." They acknowledged that some medium and high density housing is not built to high standards, but said some of that was due to limitations of the current zoning process, which can mean the lowest bidder builds on these sites. "This is just the first step into assuring that everyone has a home that is liveable and that works for them, and is good quality. There also needs to be changes throughout the way that we are think about housing and building houses across the country," Grace-Stent said. The decisions, which come into effect immediately, are final and cannot be appealed to the Environment Court. The council has until the end of the year to decide on density rules for the rest of the city. It was unable to confirm by deadline how much it had spent fighting the density rules, but had budgeted for $7 million between 2021 and the middle of this year.
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Govt knocks back Christchurch council's housing plan
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ Christchurch mayor Phil Mauger says a government knock-back on its three-year battle to create a custom carve-out of national housing intensification rules feels like a "kick in the guts", but others welcome the certainty of the move. On Friday, Minister for Resource Management Act Reform Chris Bishop issued a final decision on 17 of 20 recommendations the city council had referred after rejecting recommendations from an independent panel on the council's plan to shape a bespoke Christchurch response to national housing density policy. Bishop rejected the bulk of the council's proposals. In 2021, the then-government released its National Policy Statement on Urban Development, a plan to ramp up housing intensification across most urban areas but focused on the five high growth centres of Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Wellington and Christchurch, amid bi-partisan support for the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, though the National Party would later withdraw its backing. The bill contained Medium Density Residential Standards (MDRS), which detail what development can occur without the need for resource consent, public notification and consultation in the areas identified as most in need of housing intensification. Those rules were intended to apply across all residential zones in those identified cities, unless "qualifying matters" made intensification inappropriate. In 2022, the Christchurch council voted to reject the standards, despite warnings a commissioner could be appointed. Instead, it began several years of consultation, submissions and hearings on Plan Change 14 - its proposed changes to the district plan that would give effect to the Medium Density Residential Standards, but in a way it claimed better acknowledged the character and context of the South Island city. The council temporarily halted the process following the last election, and was later granted an extension until the end of this year on some aspects of the plan change. Bishop declined a further extension request last month. The council's stance culminated in an Independent Hearing Panel (IHP), which reported back in the middle of last year. The council accepted the majority of the IHP's recommendations, which were incorporated into the district plan. But it rejected various aspects of the proposed plan, making 20 counter-recommendations that went to the Minister. Bishop announced on Friday he had rejected 14 of the council's recommendations, accepted three and deferred his decision on three more. The decision means some parts of the city will be zoned higher-density housing and taller buildings, while the council will not be allowed to use several different "qualifying matters" to refuse consents even in high density zones - most controversially, one that hinged on the impediment of sunlight and proposed the Garden City should get an exemption because its southern location meant sunlight angles differ. Bishop's announcement locks in changes for areas in and around the CBD, and the "town centres" of Riccarton, Hornby and Linwood, which will be zoned high density residential. Taller buildings will be allowed within 600 metres of shopping areas in some suburbs - 32m (around 10 storeys high) for the Hornby shopping area, 14m for high density residential zones surrounding the shopping area, 22m (around six storeys) for Linwood's town centre, and 14m for high density residential zones around it. The council's bids to create qualifying matters on the basis of sunlight access, recession planes (a line or plane which limits how close a building can be to a property boundary), or by location - such as 'the City Spine' (major transport routes) or Riccarton Bush - also failed. Nor did Bishop accept areas around Peer St in Ilam or the Papanui War Memorial Avenues should be excluded from density rules or allowed special consideration. The council proposals Bishop did accept were Local Centre Intensification Precinct - intensification around eight of the city's commercial centres, including Barrington, Prestons and Wigram; increasing the building height overlay for the former stock yards site on Deans Avenue (a prime spot adjacent to Hagley Park, currently used as car parking for the Christchurch Hospital shuttle service) to up to 36m; and allowing high density residential zoning for Milton St (the site of the Milton St substation, which Fletchers plans to build 80 homes on). All other council alternative recommendations were rejected in favour of the hearing panel recommendations. Bishop has deferred decision-making for the heritage listing for Daresbury - a historic home in Fendalton; Antonio Hall - a derelict historic home on Riccarton Rd; and Piko Character Area - a Riccarton residential neighbourhood made up of many original state houses from the 1930s - until the council decided on the underlying zoning. "In putting these decisions forward to the government, we obviously wanted to get all of our alternative recommendations approved. So to only have three of them get the tick is a kick in the guts," Christchurch Mayor Phil Mauger said. "This plan change has been a huge undertaking for our city, and we've said right the way through that we want to get the best outcome we possibly can. This doesn't feel like the best outcome. "To that end, we'll keep working hard as a council, and there are still major decisions yet to be made when it comes to housing density and planning across much of Christchurch, so watch this space." New Zealand has one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the OECD. But urbanist collective Greater Ōtautahi welcomed the minister's decision. Chairperson M Grace-Stent said it finally brought some certainty after years of delays, decision-making, submissions and hearing panels. "What we're most excited about is that Ōtautahi Christchurch is set up for the future, it has certainty around where it can grow and where it can continue to develop in the future." The decision will not mean apartment buildings spring up overnight, they said. "It's still going to be a slow developing process, just as our cities always continually change. This is just another step." The city also needed to turn its attention to improving public transport, the collective believed. "Ōtautahi Christchurch definitely needs a re-evaluation of its transport system. We've been calling for the introduction of mass rapid transport across the city to support and facilitate the kind of growth and development that needs to happen, and to make sure that everyone has a choice about how they're getting around the city and aren't forced to just pick cars." Grace-Stent said the debate touched on ideas embedded in the national psyche about how and where New Zealanders live. They said the quarter-acre dream of a stand-alone house on a large section was unsustainable and did not not always produce greater social outcomes. "Not everyone wants to live the exact same lifestyle - allowing more housing to be built allows people to make that choice for themselves. So if people want to be living on a quarter-acre block, they're allowed to, and if people want to be living in an apartment close to their friends and amenities and where they work, they also have that choice." They acknowledged that some medium and high density housing is not built to high standards, but said some of that was due to limitations of the current zoning process, which can mean the lowest bidder builds on these sites. "This is just the first step into assuring that everyone has a home that is liveable and that works for them, and is good quality. There also needs to be changes throughout the way that we are think about housing and building houses across the country," Grace-Stent said. The decisions, which come into effect immediately, are final and cannot be appealed to the Environment Court. The council has until the end of the year to decide on density rules for the rest of the city. It was unable to confirm by deadline how much it had spent fighting the density rules, but had budgeted for $7 million between 2021 and the middle of this year.
Otago Daily Times
4 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Company fined $12k for large wastewater spill
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ The company responsible for a wastewater spill that killed thousands of fish in a Canterbury creek has been convicted and fined $12,000. Fibreboard manufacturers Daiken New Zealand had pleaded guilty to the charge late last year, which carried a maximum penalty of $600,000. The company is wholly owned by major Japanese multinational conglomerate Daiken Corporation but is not associated with air conditioner manufacturer Daikin Industries. The charge - brought by the Canterbury Regional Council under the Resource Management Act - was of discharging of a contaminant onto or into land in a manner that resulted in the contaminant entering water, after wastewater spilled from the medium density fibreboard (MDF) factory into Saltwater Creek, a tributary of the Rakahuri/Ashley River. The spill, which happened overnight on 31 August 2023, saw wastewater contaminated by substances used in the MDF refining processes, including paraffin, urea, formaldehyde, resin, bacteria, and surfactants, as well as a small amount of treated human waste. The court heard the spill was caused by a failure in piping waste from one part of Daiken's wastewater system to another. Daiken's wastewater system was made up of an oxidation pond, an aerated pond, storage lagoons and a partially suspended lagoon (PSL), which is about 30 metres from Saltwater Creek. Recently installed Venturi manual pumps operated continuously to keep the PSL at a constant level. When a Daiken employee noticed the outlet tube of first of the new pumps was vibrating, he fixed a custom-made brace to it. But when two other pumps were installed shortly before the spill, their tubes were left unsecured. One of the tubes broke overnight, resulting in about 1500-1700 m3 of wastewater spilling onto land and into Saltwater Creek. Lawyers representing Daiken said the employee who secured the pipe on the first tube was away when the other two were installed. In his absence, the company's mechanical co-ordinator contracted another company to install pump supports, and another to attend to the commissioning of the pumps. Neither installed braces. A senior representative of one of the companies told his counterpart at Daiken he was happy with the installation, and not concerned with "a little bit of movement". On the basis of that advice, and after organising for another contractor to complete the bracing the next day, Daiken's co-ordinator left the pumps running overnight. The judge described the person involved as a reliable senior employee with about 50 years experience, and classed the incident as a "one off lapse of judgement". Regional council officers at the scene after the spill recorded the creek as a "very turbid light brown" with a "strong odour of MDT effluent". Council reports and subsequent scientific analysis found the discharge resulted in "a severe and rapid drop in dissolved oxygen concentrations", with the decline in water quality persisting through most downstream river reaches for at least ten hours, and likely extended to the estuary - even with dilution - resulting in at least four to 10 hours of "severe and extensive degradation of water quality", Judge Hassan said. "Thousands of aquatic fauna would have perished, including likely the total downstream populations of some taxa including inanga, brown trout and bully" mostly by suffocation, with those left alive suffering "acute stress". Saltwater Creek is made up of a myriad of spring fed channels, and provided habitat for several threatened and endangered species, including the kana kana or pouched lamprey, long and short fin eels, inanga (whitebait), blue gill and giant bullies. Whitebait spawn in the river margins and wetlands of Saltwater Creek between autumn and winter, and surveys prior to the discharge identified declines in kākahi - fresh water mussels - which have a threat status of at risk. Other species included common smelt and black flounder. Te Aka Aka/Ashley estuary is classified as an area of significant natural value in the Regional Coastal Environmental Plan, and as an wetland of ecological and representative importance by the Department of Conservation, Judge Hassan said. The discharge coincided with the opening of the annual white-bait season. Anglers and whitebaiters were told to avoid the area, landowners and water users were warned of the risk to stock, and Te Whatu Ora was notified. The regional council's lawyers suggested a starting point of $130,000, while the company's legal counsel suggested a conviction and discharge would be appropriate, and, if not, a starting point of $130,000 was supported by precedent. On Wednesday, Judge Hassan convicted the company, and fined them $12,000. Judge Hassan found Daiken's offending to have caused a temporary severe environmental consequence, with experts predicting it would have taken 12 months for the ecology to recover, as well as cultural harm and harm to the wider community. Daiken had a commendable history of "responsible local environmental stewardship," the judge said, noting a wetland restoration project on the company's land in conjunction with the Waimakariri Biodiversity Trust. Judge Hassan said he considered the nature of the environment affected, the extent of harm inflicted, deliberateness and attitudinal factors, and found Daiken's culpability to be low. Through a restorative justice process, Daiken committed to pay $15,000 to Waimakariri Biodiversity Trust, and $15,000 to the Sefton Saltwater Creek Catchment Group, and agreed to contribute at least $20,000 towards consultants to carry out assessments and baseline exploratory work across the wider catchment. The company also proactively engaged with Te Runanga o Ngāi Tahu and Te Ngāi Tuahuriri, committing to work together on enhancing the health of the creek, including providing regularly monitoring and improvement updates, Judge Hassan said. The terms of these payments were set out in an enforcement order, which requires Daiken make the payments by specified dates. After adopted a starting fine in the range in the order of $80,000, Judge Hassan discounted it for Daiken's guilty plea, good character and remorse, then accounted for the other financial commitments, resulting in the final fine of $12,000. The Rangiora company is wholly owned by Japan's Daiken Corporation, which made 210 billion yen (NZ$2 billion) in revenue and 3.9 billion yen (NZ$45m) in profit in the 2023/2024 financial year. Daiken New Zealand's revenue over the same period was NZ$185.5 million, and its profit after tax was $19.9m. Environment Canterbury compliance manager Jennifer Rochford said the fine was lower than the council expected, but it respected the decision of the court.
Scoop
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Canterbury Council's Freshwater Management Challenged In Court
Monday, 12 May 2025, 6:25 pm Article: RNZ Keiller MacDuff, Senior reporter The first of two back-to-back court cases challenging the Canterbury regional council's freshwater management begins at the Christchurch High Court today. The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) will ask the court to quash a rule in the regional plan which allows certain farming discharges as a permitted activity. Senior researcher Anna Sintenie said ELI will argue the rule - which allows the discharge of nutrients onto or into land to be a permitted activity in some circumstances, but can result in contaminants entering water - breaches the Resource Management Act. She said the council should be protecting the health of Canterbury's waterways and people for generations to come, but has instead been "illegally permissive" of activities that have led to significant pollution. The organisations will be back in the High Court the following week, as ELI seeks to have a consent for the Mayfield Hinds Valetta (MHV) irrigation scheme deemed unlawful. In 2021, the council granted MHV Water Ltd a consent to discharge nitrogen over more than 58,000 hectares in the Hinds/Hekeao Plains. Sintenie said the organisation is seeking a similar outcome as they won in 2024, when the court found the council had unlawfully granted a resource consent for the neighbouring Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Ltd irrigation scheme (ALIL), and quashed the consent. The regional council and ALIL have appealed the decision. She said in the wake of the court's findings in the ALIL case - that the council's decision to grant the discharge consent breached the RMA, and that the council had failed to consider other relevant policies requiring it to avoid adverse effects on indigenous biodiversity and the "natural character" of coastal and freshwater environment - ELI took another look at the council's water management and protection. The group will also argue the council failed to consider the potential impacts on local drinking water supplies, and should have notified the community. It was just down to the court's timetabling that the cases had been scheduled back to back, Sintinie said. But it was no coincidence the organisation was scrutinising the Canterbury Regional Council's decison-making, consent management and protection of freshwater. "We've had a focus on water quality outcomes in Canterbury because we can see there's a significant nitrogen pollution issue in the region. "We believe in this context of significant pollution, there's a high responsibility on ECan [the regional council] to be sure it's properly managing these issues." The majority of the country's freshwater is located in Canterbury (about 70 percent), as is the bulk of the nation's irrigated land. The council declined to comment while the cases were before the court. © Scoop Media
Otago Daily Times
11-05-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Canterbury's freshwater management challanged in court
By Keiller MacDuff of RNZ The first of two back-to-back court cases challenging Environment Canterbury's freshwater management begins at the Christchurch High Court today. The Environmental Law Initiative (ELI) will ask the court to quash a rule in the regional plan which allows certain farming discharges as a permitted activity. Senior researcher Anna Sintenie said ELI will argue the rule - which allows the discharge of nutrients onto or into land to be a permitted activity in some circumstances, but can result in contaminants entering water - breaches the Resource Management Act. She said the council should be protecting the health of Canterbury's waterways and people for generations to come, but has instead been "illegally permissive" of activities that have led to significant pollution. The organisations will be back in the High Court the following week, as ELI seeks to have a consent for the Mayfield Hinds Valetta (MHV) irrigation scheme deemed unlawful. In 2021, the council granted MHV Water Ltd a consent to discharge nitrogen over more than 58,000 hectares in the Hinds/Hekeao Plains. Sintenie said the organisation is seeking a similar outcome as they won in 2024, when the court found the council had unlawfully granted a resource consent for the neighbouring Ashburton Lyndhurst Irrigation Ltd irrigation scheme (ALIL), and quashed the consent. The regional council and ALIL have appealed the decision. She said in the wake of the court's findings in the ALIL case - that the council's decision to grant the discharge consent breached the RMA, and that the council had failed to consider other relevant policies requiring it to avoid adverse effects on indigenous biodiversity and the "natural character" of coastal and freshwater environment - ELI took another look at the council's water management and protection. The group will also argue the council failed to consider the potential impacts on local drinking water supplies, and should have notified the community. It was just down to the court's timetabling that the cases had been scheduled back to back, Sintinie said. But it was no coincidence the organisation was scrutinising the Canterbury Regional Council's decison-making, consent management and protection of freshwater. "We've had a focus on water quality outcomes in Canterbury because we can see there's a significant nitrogen pollution issue in the region. "We believe in this context of significant pollution, there's a high responsibility on ECan [the regional council] to be sure it's properly managing these issues." The majority of the country's freshwater is located in Canterbury (about 70 percent), as is the bulk of the nation's irrigated land. The council declined to comment while the cases were before the court.
