New research shows developers cannot count on "the silent majority" as necessarily supporting a project.
While there was a perception that only "stroppy naysayers" put in submissions on resource consent applications and the silent majority was probably in favour, a University of Otago study into wind farm developments showed that was not true, Dr Janet Stephenson said last week.
Instead, non-submitters were equally likely to oppose or support a proposal, but were more lukewarm in their views than those who lodged submissions, she said.
The research was carried out by Dr Stephenson, from the university's centre for the study of agriculture, food and environment, Matthew Hoffman, from the geography department, and Prof Rob Lawson, from the marketing department.
They interviewed 33 residents living near two proposed wind farms - Kaiwera Downs in Southland and Mill Creek in Wellington.
Twenty had made submissions to the wind farm consent applications and 13 had not.
Despite the small numbers involved, the results were statistically valid and also surprising, Dr Stephenson said.
"The main surprise was that not all non-submitters were supportive of the developments.
"They were very much fairly evenly spread across the whole spectrum of views from support to opposition, but were more lukewarm in those views than submitters."
The study also found people who chose not to lodge submissions did not see the resource consent process as a barrier.
"There is a perception people don't submit because they see the process as onerous, but our interviews did not bear that out."
Asked if the findings could be equally applied to community projects such as Dunedin's Forsyth Barr stadium, Dr Stephenson said it was "not safe to say".
But she said the topic deserved more research.
"If the opportunity arose, I would be very interested in rolling out the research more widely to see if the same results apply to other projects and not just wind farms."
allison.rudd@odt.co.nz