Methodology
This study involved categorising each resource consent application by using the following five steps:
1. Determine whether the resource consent application was lodged with a regional council or district/city council.
2. Determine whether the resource consent applicant belongs to the 'RMA professional', 'other professional', or 'general public' categories.
3. Determine which subgroup each 'RMA professional', belongs to - 'surveyors' or 'planners'.
4. Determine which subgroup each 'other professional', belongs to - 'engineers', 'architect', 'landscape architect', 'lawyers' or 'other'.
5. The number and type of resource consent applications were then recorded in the corresponding cells within one of two 'Excel' matrices - one for regional councils and the other for district/city councils.
It is noted that the resource consent data from the initial 10 councils (as part of the earlier study previously mentioned) [Ministry for the Environment 'E-Planning Study', prepared by Boulder Planning (Otago) Ltd, March 2006.] was reclassified and combined with the new resource consent data obtained from the additional 10 councils as part of the current study.
Notes
1. Definition agreed with Ministry
For the purposes of this study:
- 'RMA professionals' are defined as including:
- Planners: where an application was clearly made by a planner, irrespective of whether the planner was employed by a planning consultancy or another specialised discipline.
- Surveyors: where an application was clearly made by a surveyor or surveying firm, (where the firm did not appear to specifically employ planners).
- 'Other professionals' are defined as including other professionals involved with the RMA, such as engineers, architects, landscape architects, lawyers and any other professional not represented in other categories.
- 'General public' is defined as including members of the general public.
It is noted that the resource consent data from the initial 10 councils (as part of the earlier study previously mentioned) [Ministry for the Environment 'E-Planning Study', prepared by Boulder Planning (Otago) Ltd, March 2006.] was reclassified and combined with the new resource consent data obtained from the additional 10 councils as part of the current study, in accordance with a revised definition of what constitutes an 'RMA Professional' and 'RMA Professional involved with the RMA'.
2. Potential limitations
There are two areas in the described method to be mindful of when interpreting results:
- Inconsistencies in the way in which councils recorded resource consent information.
- Limitations in data, for example insufficient details surrounding agent details, resource consent details.
For these reasons, the process of categorising the resource consent applicant and nature of resource consent became more of subjective process where there was a level of ambiguity in the data.
