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26. 2. 97
CITY PLAN HEARINGS COMMITTEE
19 DECEMBER 1996
A meeting of the City Plan Hearings Committee
was held on Thursday 19 December 1996 at 11.30 am
PRESENT: Councillor Charles Manning (Chairman),
Councillors David Buist, David Cox,
Newton Dodge, Lesley Keast and Margaret Murray;
Mrs Cushla Dwyer, Mrs Maria Tait, Mr Rex Arbuckle,
Mr Alex Clark and Mr Bill Edwards.
APOLOGIES: Apologies for absence were received and accepted from Councillor Anna Crighton and Mr Maurice Nutira.
The Committee reports that:
PART B - ITEMS DEALT WITH BY THE COMMITTEE AND
REPORTED FOR INFORMATION ONLY
1. CHAIRMAN'S REPORT - ISSUES ARISING
FROM CITY PLAN HEARINGS RR 4338
| Officer responsible Environmental Services Manager | Author Committee Chairman, Councillor Charles Manning |
| Corporate Plan Output: City Plan |
During the hearing of submissions on the City Plan, issues arise which can be expeditiously dealt with by standing committees. Two concerns arose which may be appropriately dealt with by the Parks and Recreation Committee.
The Forest and Bird Protection Society gave evidence that the Wood Pigeon (Kereru) was now reduced to about 15 pairs in this city. It would be possible for the Parks and Recreation, in conjunction with the Forest and Bird Society, to provide information on the sort of plantings which would encourage the Kereru to remain or return to the city or even to undertake planting in suitable areas.
The Cancer Society, in a submission on natural hazards, pointed out that New Zealand has one of the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. There is clearly a relationship between skin cancer and exposure to the sun. To my knowledge we have no formal policy to provide shaded areas on parks or other open air venues under our control, and certainly there are some parks where no shade has been developed. The panel believed that the Parks and Recreation Committee should give attention to this matter, and should develop a policy for the provision of shade and a programme for providing it in areas which are deficient.
The Committee resolved to recommend to the Parks and Recreation Committee:
(a) That Parks officers discuss with the Forest and Bird Protection Society the possibility of a Kereru recovery programme.
(b) That the Parks and Recreation Committee establish a policy for the provision of shaded areas in parks and other open air venues and develop a programme for its implementation.
2. SCOPE FOR GRANTING RELIEF TO SUBMISSIONS
ON THE CITY PLAN RR 4339
| Officer responsible Environmental Services Manager | Author Bob Nixon, Team Leader, City Plan |
| Corporate Plan Output: City Plan |
The extent to which Councils can make amendments to plans in terms of the scope of the submissions lodged has been an issue in Town Planning and Resource Management for many years.
In September 1996, an amendment to Clause 10 of the First Schedule to the Resource Management Act, sought to clarify the Act in respect of this matter. The amendment added the following subclause:
"(2) The decisions of the local authority may include any consequential alterations arising out of submissions and any other matters it considered relating to matters raised in submissions."
This has been discussed between planning and legal services staff over the last few months as well.
Perhaps the best way to illustrate matters is to do so by way of examples.
Where a submitter seeks (a), (b) and (c) to be added to, or deleted from, provisions in a Plan, the council can choose to grant (a) and (b) only, or perhaps (c) only, instead of the full range of relief sought in the submission. This had been disputed by legal counsel in the past.
It appears that more latitude with wording changes can be shown with amendments to objectives, policies, reasons and assessment matters than is the case with actual rules. The reason for this is that rules have direct regulatory effect on land owners.
It is possible for instance, to make changes to the wording of a policy that doesn't precisely match the wording sought in the submission or because differing submissions have sought different wordings for the same policy. However, the Council would not be able to extend the scope of a policy, or add new policies that were not sought in submissions.
Changes to rules operate under much tighter parameters. The Council can only grant what is sought within submissions as lodged with the Council and not as presented at the hearing.
Again, some examples may illustrate this.
The Plan may provide for a maximum height in a particular zone of 12m. A submission lodged on the City Plan may ask this to be reduced to 9m. Another submitter, who may have sought no specific relief but merely "tighter rules" in that zone, may turn up at the hearing and say: "Well, I thought about it, and I would like there to be a maximum height of 7m." In this situation, the Council could only grant as relief a maximum height of 12m, 9m or something in between these two figures. It could not grant a height of 7m because readers of the summary of submissions would not have known that another submitter was seeking a height of 7m.
Another common example is where people put in submissions to simply say things like: "Make the zone provisions on residential development more stringent." It would be unclear to a reader of the summary of submissions exactly what this would mean in terms of their property rights. If a submitter then turns up to the hearing and said that they had thought about it more, and concluded that the maximum height of buildings should be 7m and not 12m, and that the minimum allotment size be 600m2 instead of 300m2, then it is unlikely that the Council could grant that relief without undermining the legal rights of potential further submitters.
The key principle in this whole process is to protect the legal rights of the persons who may be affected by the granting of submissions. They can only determine whether they are affected by reading the Summary of Submissions published by the Council, which in turn is based on the written submissions made to the Plan. If a submitter comes to the hearing and seeks relief that could affect a person's ability to use land, or liberalise the use of land in a manner that other submitters may not have been aware of, then that relief would be outside the scope of submissions and could not be entertained.
Generally speaking, the staff will have to make a judgement in their planning reports as to whether particular submissions fall within the scope of the submissions that have been lodged. There are no simple black and white answers to these matters and each one will have to be judged on its merits.
The Committee resolved that the information be received.
3. REVIEW OF HEARING PROCESS
The main points arising from the Committee's review of the hearing process to date were that:
(a) A disadvantage of giving submitters a specific time to appear is that they do not hear other submissions. It was agreed that a note should be added to notification letters advising submitters that they are welcome to attend the hearings at any time.
(b) Time for deliberations should be allowed for when setting hearing dates. It was agreed that it would be worthwhile for panels to meet and discuss the draft decisions once they are written.
(c) Where there are insufficient submitters wishing to be heard to fill the allocated days of a particular hearing, the programme for the hearing days should be shortened rather than having spare days. Hearings on days that clash with other Committee meetings should finish early enough to give Councillors sufficient time to attend the Committee meetings.
The Committee resolved that the information be received.
The meeting concluded at 12.40 pm
CONSIDERED THIS 26TH DAY OF FEBRUARY 1997
MAYOR