Any process that adds complexity or cost to the way communities engage with important council decisions must be viewed with sceptical caution.
After all, our councils are there to work for ratepayers, and as they do so, they should make it easy for ratepayers to have their say on important policies. They ought to plan to have adequate resources, and they ought to develop work programmes that allow for timely community engagement and implementation.
Ratepayers expect such no matter the complexity of the issues their councils face. They expect — rightly — their councils to work for them.
Federated Farmers suggests the Otago Regional Council has fallen short of these expectations in asking the Minister for the Environment to speed up a plan change process.
The council has voted to ask David Parker to ‘‘call in’’ Plan Change 7, an already controversial change that will allow for the move from deemed permits to water permits over the next five years. The change has been through the pre-consultation stages but the council is worried what amount to interim measures will not be implemented before its new Land and Water Plan is notified in 2023.
It has told the minister that running the traditional process, which would include consultation and a commissioner-led hearings process, could drag on if the plan change is sent to appeal. Previous examples suggest it could take up to three years to conclude. Having outstanding plan changes undecided would not be efficient or helpful to the overall land and water plan framework, it says.
The minister can send the plan to the Environment Court or to a board of inquiry. Both are more formal than a mere hearings process, and both have strict rules. The council suggests the minister send the plan to a board because it is time-bound, which would reduce the risk of the change remaining unresolved when the broader plan is notified.
Its panel would have some knowledge of the local area which, the council says in its letter to Mr Parker, ‘‘is important to the communities of Otago’’.
Indeed it would be — which is why some of the region’s most affected ratepayers wanted the chance to have their say on what might happen at the back doorstep.
As dry and dull as the hearings process might sound, it is worth remembering lobby groups and well-financed businesses are not the only outfits that have their hopes and fears heard.
Hearings panels also hear from individual ratepayers; by home owners, by landowners, by farmers and by small businesses. All that is needed is the wherewithal to make a submission.
There are few if any financial impediments to making a submission and the hearings themselves are no more formal than what one would expect from an ordinary council meeting.
Naturally, there are fears the opposite will be true if a board is involved. With complexity comes the very real chance only the biggest and best resourced submitters will not be put off.
This would be far from ideal for local democracy and engagement if it were to come to pass. It might ensure the change was operative before 2023, but it could muffle community voice.
It is true the council has a lot on its plate, and that it must make pragmatic decisions to ensure there are fewer impediments to the development of its important Land and Water Plan.
But it is concerning to note the council is already worried how it might progress the normal hearings process if the minister decides against calling the plan in.
The council is ‘‘very concerned’’ about whether it can get a commissioner with the skills required to hear submissions. This suggests even the usual resource consent process might be difficult to assure.
If this is the case, then the minister and councils have more on their plates than a mere one-off decision to ask someone else to expedite the passage of an important local policy.
If there is a shortage, the structural issues that allow that to happen must be explored and addressed. Ratepayers should expect the process to be adequately resourced, to ensure their concerns are constructively heard.
