Straight from city council A personal view, by Councillor Steve Morris

The Resource Management Act is the target of bureaucracy haters everywhere and the politician's whipping boy.

Since 1991, the media's whipped up fears of unreasonable councils imposing draconian controls over private property. Horror upon horror, developments and changes to planning rules impacting the community might actually require consultation with the public!

The original intent of the RMA was that a clear majority of resource consents would be publicly notified with world-leading protection of both the environment and public amenity. City plans, made in agreement with the public, should rule and be clear; with consents to exceed the rules rare.

However, it's eventuated that 95 per cent of resource consents are processed ‘non-notified' with neighbours and other affected public unable to have any say on development in their communities. Over time we have developed a culture of ‘blame the RMA' for everything; leading successive Governments to ‘simplify' and ‘streamline' the process by stripping out public consultation and leaving New Zealand with a developer-friendly planning regime that's decidedly unfriendly to the average public.

We love to shout ‘NIMBY!' at people we see objecting to developments through the media, but often that's the only place they can object because they've been shut out of the planning process.

What needs to change? we need to replace the RMA with an updated law that has the protection of the environment and the communities at its heart. Locally, we need to employ a ‘resident's advocate' in Council to help unsuspecting residents who face themselves up against well-resourced and experienced developers.