RMA overhaul promises fast building, but critics warn of confusion

The government’s overhaul of New Zealand’s Resource Management Act (RMA) is being hailed as a “once-in-a-generation” opportunity to cut red tape and speed up construction.

But critics say the back-and-forth changes have left councils, developers, and communities in a state of uncertainty.

In an interview with William Terite on Pacific Mornings, Nick Leggett, the head of Infrastructure New Zealand, says the reforms could finally make it easier for families to build granny flats, home extensions, and other projects without unnecessary delays.

Leggett says streamlining the law could remove up to 40 per cent of consents, saving more than $1 billion a year in professional reporting and time costs.

“We're at the bottom of the South Pacific, a long way away from our neighbours, and it costs more to build infrastructure in this country,” Leggett says. “Part of the reason we don’t get the best value of what we invest in is because it takes too long and often it takes too long because we have many, many planning hoops to jump through.”

The government’s replacement bills for the RMA, revealed this week, aim to consolidate more than 100 local plans into 17 regional ones, reduce consent requirements, and fully implement the system by 2029.

Listen to Nick Leggett's full interview below.

Leggett says this could make life easier not only for developers but also for ordinary households trying to improve their homes.

“If you're building the granny flat on the back of your house or you want to add an addition to your house, all of those things that just often seem to be needless hoops of bureaucracy and red tape, a lot of those are going to be removed.”

But Labour’s finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, says the reforms simply reintroduce policies Labour had already passed after they spent two years reinstating the old RMA.

Watch Barbara Edmond's full interview below.

“It just kind of makes you wonder why they've been wasting their time spending two years putting something back in, reversing it and bringing back what was under Labour, it's bewildering,” Edmonds tells Terite.

She says the back-and-forth creates real uncertainty for councils, developers, and communities.

“People need to know what are the rules that apply when they're going to build infrastructure, when they're going to build homes, when they're going to build commercial buildings, those sorts of things and what are the environmental protections that are there to support the environment and the community.”