Property rights and land management

Abstract

This paper critically examines existing land use planning statutes and proposes major reform. It argues that land use planning statutes serve a valuable function in providing for the clearer definition of property rights, but that this function is compromised by present planning procedures that allow these rights to be adjusted coercively, and it argues further that the removal of this second (although major) function would provide for greater prosperity and enhanced environmental quality, with resources allocated openly and consistently, with a greater range of values considered, and, that in thereby allowing Maori people to exercise their lawful rights without restraint, full effect would be given to the Treaty of Waitangi. The paper suggests, in short, that present planning procedures are inimical to the wise use of resources, i.e. that they are incompatible with their statutory purpose.

The paper is in three parts. The first part considers the characteristics of the land resource, the need for property rights, and the problems that bedevil collective attempts to direct its use; the second part summarises existing planning law, and the third part describes the reform that is proposed.