At the Minister for the Environment 's speech on Resource Management Act reform earlier this year, it was interesting to see how the report on regulation in residential property development was being used to justify wider changes to the Act.
The Motu report was descriptively (if not imaginatively) titled ''Impacts of Planning Rules, Regulations, Uncertainty and Delay on Residential Property Development''.
The report only deals with one narrow (albeit important) aspect of the environment which, of course, is residential development.
However, the RMA is an omnibus statute.
It deals with the management of more or less all of our physical resources.
So, the minister's illustration of the so-called ''mountain of red tape'' we all face, with a formidable pile of resource management documents stacked behind him on stage at the Nelson Rotary Club's annual address, related to more that just housing.
There were plans dealing with water, air, land and the coast.
There is no doubt considerable intellectual effort has been applied to the report.
However, that plan regulation and planning processes add uncertainty and delay that, in turn, can change the decision of a developer to proceed seems to be pretty self-evident.
The cited figure of a 3% addition to total costs of a project for delay is a more useful finding.
That is likely to be in addition to the $30,000 extra cost for apartments and $15,000 for sections highlighted by Dr Nick Smith in his address.
At the 2014 Resource Management Law Association annual conference, held in Dunedin, the Deputy Secretary for the Environment, James Palmer, commented on the productivity of fish farming in terms of protein per kilogram.
He then pointed to the export revenue missed as a consequence of the Supreme Court's decision to decline the NZ King Salmon Company's project in the Marlborough Sounds, basically on landscape grounds.
It is evident this has nothing to do with housing, affordable or otherwise, and is at least as important an issue nationally as the housing crisis in our two biggest cities.
So, the danger of the rather dramatic use of the report and wall of paper at the minister's back as justification to (partly at least) promote ''significant changes'' to the Act is simplistic.
Dr Smith describes this National Government as a ''Bluegreen Government'' that is ''up front'' about wanting to utilise the country's natural resources to drive economic growth. So this is where the real scrutiny and public debate should fall.
It is notable the absence of specific reference to economic growth in changes to sections 6 and 7 suggests this minister has rethought his predecessor's approach.
Sections 6 and 7 set out the really important considerations that sit above and guide day-to-day decision-making in the Act.
When the RMA was first enacted those matters were seen as environmental bottom lines that could not be compromised.
Clearly economic growth would not fit within that nomenclature, so it would have been a huge change.
The minister still says that there should be ''recognition'' in the Act of the way plans and rules impact on housing affordability, jobs and economic growth, while remaining focused on environmental effects.
It is too soon to know what that would look like.
Additions to the RMA's engine room to make provision for the impact controlling environment effects has on people is a good thing.
It is quite something else, and infinitely more challenging, to ''ensure the Act remains focused on environmental effects, but with a better appreciation of the way plans and rules impact on housing affordability, jobs and economic growth and development of our cities''.
The original authors of the RMA thought we could have environmental bottom lines and the market would then regulate our use of resources.
This faith in the markets to behave in a way that leads to efficient use of resources does seem to have been misplaced.
We are now saying we need less focus on environmental matters and more focus on human-driven concerns.
However, the two are inextricably linked.
If reducing the cost of land in urban areas, particularly Auckland and Christchurch, is your goal then it is unclear why sections 6 and 7 need to be significantly changed.
The answer is that they don't.
However, there are deeper issues that need to be addressed in our environmental management.
The proposed RMA changes are not only about housing affordability and cutting red tape.
There are much bigger implications to the changes the minister has foreshadowed that we should be paying attention to.
• Chris Thomsen is head of Resource Management at Webb Farry Lawyers.
