To notify or not to notify? Public participation in local resource management

Abstract

This report identifies the issues surrounding the notification of resource consent applications under the RMA, and outlines practical changes and future research for progressing the problem. The problem of notification contains two key concerns: firstly, that people are excluded from decisions on which they feel they have a right to be consulted; and secondly, that notification leads to undesirable delays and costs. The notification of consent applications is a contentious issue because different approaches to interpreting and implementing the provisions benefit different participants in the consent process. In addition, local councils hold a considerable amount of discretion regarding whether a consent is notified or not, and their methods for exercising this discretion appear to be ad hoc. Lastly, the efficiency and increased public participation intentions of the notification provisions seem to be conflicting and require balancing by local councils.

A theoretical framework is formulated incorporating implementation, decision making, and public participation theory. The framework is then used to assess the current practices of local authorities regarding the notification of resource consents. The main conclusions drawn from this research were that there was a lack of agreement on goals and intentions at both central and local levels, and that discretion needs to be allocated to the local level because of the complexity and variability of local environments. The decision making structures used in the consent process are changed in response to the individual cases therefore increasing the efficiency of the process, but decision makers also have to document their decisions, which can aid in promoting fair and equitable decisions. Finally, a wide range of information sources are used by decision makers which is not widely recognised. These sources are initiated by the extensive number of avenues provided by the RMA through which the community can participate and affect decisions made on the notification of applications.