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Questions and answers – national environmental standards for telecommunications facilities

What is a national environmental standard?

National environmental standards (NESs) are regulations made under sections 43 and 44 of the Resource Management Act 1991. Standards can be numerical limits, narrative statements or methodologies in a legally enforceable form.

The National Environmental Standards for Telecommunications Facilities are explicit or quantitative statements that will permit certain uses of land that may otherwise require resource consent from some local councils. Once they become regulation, it will mean that no local authority may impose more restrictive requirements than those in the standard.

Why have national environmental standards, and why introduce them now?

The telecommunications standards have the potential to contribute to economic transformation by providing direction on technical issues, evening out inconsistencies in district plans, and increasing certainty during the resource consent process for local government and the telecommunications industry.

At present, considerable variation exists between territorial authority district plans in how they address and control installation of telecommunications antennas (or masts) and equipment cabinets on roadsides. This makes the process of gaining planning permission and building the structurestime-consuming, expensive and inconsistent for telecommunications companies seeking to install or expand their services across several local authority areas.

The standards seek to create a level playing field across the country. In some areas they will remove the requirement to first obtain resource consent while in other districts they will place tighter limits on what may or may not require resource consent.

What do the standards cover?

The telecommunications standards address:

Radiofrequency fields emitted from antennas.
The erection of roadside equipment cabinets. These cabinets can contain equipment for telephones (both land-lines and mobiles), cable television and for Internet.
The addition of antennas to existing structures (such as light poles on roadsides or verges). The antennas are used for wireless Internet connections and mobile phones (including new technologies that can transmit television, Internet and radio to mobile phones and PDAs ¹ ).
Noise levels from roadside cabinets.

Will the standards mean faster broadband and better mobile services?

Indirectly, yes. The standards will allow faster roll-out of new services and quicker expansion of existing services to a greater number of homes and businesses, including high-speed broadband and increased mobile phone coverage. This includes the infrastructure necessary as part of the local loop unbundling.

The standards will also facilitate access to new services and benefit consumers through more choice of provider and reduced costs through increased competition among operators.

Do the standards place any restrictions on the size of masts/antennas that can be installed?

All District and City Council plans already set thresholds specifying what size masts and antennas can and can't be installed. The standard will ensure that this acceptable size threshold is consistent across the country e.g. a level playing field.

Establishing a consistent threshold would help the rollout of new technology, as there is no time spent having to interpret different local government planning controls, and designing equipment of slightly different sizes to comply with different size thresholds.

What controls are proposed to prevent new masts/antennas and cabinets cluttering up the streetscape or landscape?

The standards include a limit on the numbers of roadside cabinets allowed in one specific location as well as a minimum separation distance to other structures to ensure any potential for cluttering to occur is avoided.

Would the standards mean that telecommunications companies could site masts/antennas and cabinets anywhere they choose?

No, the standards will apply only to equipment cabinets and antennas located within the road reserve and there would be a limit on the number and size of cabinets permitted.

Telecommunications operators are also required by law to notify the road owner of their intention to install equipment in, on or under a road. The road owner may require compliance with specific conditions that include road safety and access. Roads are owned and administered by road controlling authorities (RCAs). For state highways and motorways the RCA is Transit New Zealand. The RCA for most other roads is the local council.

Does this mean there will be no local say over where cabinets or antennas are installed by telecommunications companies?

No, the standards will remove the requirement for telecommunications companies to obtain planning permission (resource consent) for some low-impact structures by the roadside.

The community can still have a say. Where a district plan identifies areas or values the community wishes to protect or manage, then telecommunications operators will have to comply with the requirements of the district plan.
Cabinets and antennas in or adjacent to landscape and heritage areas, for example, would not be permitted automatically and would require resource consent to be granted before they were installed.
There is also a legal requirement under the Telecommunications Act to comply with any conditions imposed by the road controlling authority for things such as safety and location.

Also broader consideration of clutter through increased minimum separation distances between cabinets has been applied.

The standards will mean a relaxation of planning controls in some local authorities’ district plans. Is this appropriate?

The telecommunications standards will provide national consistency for what could be installed without first obtaining resource consent, and detail where installation is or is not appropriate. The Ministry for the Environment commissioned consultants to analyse the current planning provisions in the district plans of all local authorities in New Zealand to see whether the proposed standards would be more restrictive, consistent with, or less restrictive than district plans.

The results showed that the proposed standards are more restrictive than, or are consistent with, most current district plans for all the areas studied.

What assurances can you provide that the radio frequency fields generated from the masts/antennas will not harm me or my children?

The national environmental standards for telecommunications facilities effectively reproduce the existing Standards New Zealand Standard for radiofrequency fields and draws on existing Ministry of Health and Ministry for the Environment national guidance for radiofrequency fields that is widely accepted and used in New Zealand.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) updated their research in 2006 and concluded:

“Considering the very low exposure levels and research results collected to date, there is no convincing scientific evidence that the weak RF signals from base stations and wireless networks cause adverse health effects.”

The WHO factsheet can be found at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs304/en/print.html

The telecommunictions standard for radio-frequency fields was based on international guidelines endorsed by the WHO. This standard requires a telecommunications company to engage the National Radiation Laboratory to undertake monitoring on their behalf if initial modelling indicates that emissions will be more than 25 per cent of the maximum allowed by the proposed standard.

The telecommunications standard for radio-frequency fields also sets limits that take into account the radiofrequency fields generated from a particular location not just the fields generated from a single, new antenna thereby addressing potential cumulative effects.

The telecommunications standards are intended for telecommunications infrastructure in public areas and are not intended to cover radiofrequency fields inside homes, schools or offices.

Will the standards take into account new research?

The standards will be reviewed if new research came to light showing any effects to health. The National Radiation Laboratory reviews such research.

The Ministry for the Environment participates in a New Zealand interagency committee monitoring research in this area. The committee meets twice per year and includes representatives from government, public health, consumer interests and industry. The committee is required to inform the Minister of Health and the Minister for the Environment if there is suspicion of health hazards from exposures to radiofrequency fields that comply with current Ministry of Health recommendations.

Will there be noise from the equipment boxes?

The telecommunications standard for noise from roadside cabinets sets daytime and night-time limits for residential and non-residential areas.

The telecommunications standard is largely based on the voluntary Standards New Zealand Standards for environmental noise ²
The Standards NZ Standards were commissioned by the Ministry of Health and prepared by a committee of environmental noise experts.
One of the NZ Standards is for assessing noise (NZS 6802). It gives a range of noise levels as a guideline for the reasonable protection of health and amenity for land used for residential purposes. Noise limits for less sensitive areas (business and industrial) are typically less stringent, and this is reflected by the telecommunications standard.

Who pays for this standard?

The cost–benefit analysis undertaken as part of the development of the discussion document points to cost savings for local councils and the telecommunications industry. There is no need for a local council to go through a costly plan change process when a national environmental standard comes into force, as the law states that the standard automatically overrides local plan provisions.

Some smaller telecommunication companies have expressed concerns about the standards creating additional costs for them. Is this true?

It is hoped the standards will lower costs for smaller businesses to enter the market, as well as the larger players. The standard would only be more restrictive where a telecommunications company was currently operating only in local authority areas where the current district plan provisions are more permissive than that proposed by the new standards.

Why has the Ministry for the Environment taken a role in developing standards for telecommunications facilities?

The Ministry for the Environment administers the Resource Management Act and national environmental standards are provided for in the Resource Management Act. Therefore it is the role of MfE to consider and develop proposals for national environmental standards.

In the discussion document, the Ministry for the Environment noted its views on areas in the proposed standards they considered closer scrutiny was required. Part of that scrutiny is the consideration of public submissions. The standards take into account concerns raised by submitters and the standards have changed as a result of the consultation process.

Footnotes

¹ PDA – “Personal Digital Assistant” hand held mobile devices that allow a person to send and receive a variety of information, including telephone, email and data.

² NZS 6801:1999 – Acoustics – Measurement of Environmental Sound levels and NZS 6802:1991 – Assessment of Environmental Sound