‘Death by a thousand cuts’: Ex-mayor fears for Waitākere intensification under new law

A group of West Aucklanders and conservationists fear the Government’s landmark resource management laws will erode specific protections for Auckland’s Waitākere Ranges, with former mayor Sir Bob Harvey warning it could be “death by a thousand cuts”. 

The Waitākere Ranges are protected by a special piece of legislation called the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area Act, which created a special heritage area that protects the ranges, including the foothills. 

The law designates the ranges an area of “national significance” and requires Auckland Council to protect the heritage areas in its plans. The existing Resource Management Act (RMA) is the law that gives effect to the heritage area. The heritage area is about 27,700 hectares and comprises both public and private land. 

RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop is in the middle of reforms to the RMA, replacing it with two new pieces of legislation. 

While many of the tools the RMA provides to give effect to the ranges heritage area will be carried over into the new system, the porting isn’t exact, and Bishop hinted that in some cases, there may be liberalisation. 

“The Waitakere Ranges Heritage Act 2008 basically says that the Auckland Unitary Plan has to be consistent with this separate piece of legislation so there’s quite complicated interactions between the Auckland Unitary Plan or District Plan and the heritage act and the RMA,” Bishop said. 

“It’s complicated but there’s also a way through and we’re giving some thought to what the right way forward is,” Bishop said. 

Bishop said the way the heritage act works under the new laws will be “largely unchanged” to the way it functions now. 

However, he said there may be some “tweaks” and noted that some people who live in the heritage area are frustrated about their “inability to do various things with their property”, including an inability to easily subdivide it. 

A petition calling for the new RMA to safeguard the ranges has more than 8000 signatures. 

Harvey, who was the mayor of Waitakere when the legislation was passed by Parliament and was formerly the president of the Labour Party, told the Herald that petitioners have “a very good relationship with the Government”. 

“We’re not dog in the manger about this ... the Waitākere Ranges have special significance, which we just want the Government to guarantee that it does not fall into the growth of Auckland,” he said. 

He noted the Heritage Act took decades to be passed into law, beginning with Labour MP Jonathan Hunt bringing a version of the law to Parliament in the 1970s. 

Steve Abel, a Green Party list MP and candidate for the Waitākere electorate, told the Herald the substance of the heritage act was fundamentally good and the new system should ensure there is no backsliding from the status quo. 

Abel said he wants to ensure that “whatever the new RMA structure, it upholds the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Act. It is designed to protect the extraordinary heritage of that area of Auckland”. 

“Those of us who live in that heritage area have chosen to be subject to rules that protect that area,” he said. 

The Waitākere Ranges Local Board made a critical submission on the reforms. A member of the board, Greg Presland, told the Herald he was concerned about the regulatory relief portion of the reforms. 

Regulatory relief would, in some cases, require councils to reimburse property owners for decisions that negatively impact on their property rights. 

He said these provisions may have a “chilling effect” on Auckland Council’s appetite to impose controls on the ranges for their protection, given such controls could be costly for the council. 

Auckland Council’s own submission on the bill warned about the fact that the new regime will not have “controlled” and “non-complying” activity classes, which are used by councils during consenting to manage an activity’s impact on the environment. 

The Government says cutting down on these classes will allow more activities to be permitted without the need for a consent or permit, particularly those with less than minor adverse effects. 

Auckland Council wanted these activity classes to still apply within the Waitākere Ranges Heritage Area.