Whangarei local government meeting
Monday 30 October
Waste policy
Waste levy
- Do not charge a levy at the end of a products life. A levy should be charged at the beginning like container deposit legislation. There is support for a container deposit and/or a product stewardship approach that involves a change at the beginning of the supply chain.
- The levy is just a tax in disguise.
- Big cities will suck up the money and none will be available for smaller authorities.
- Consumer education is needed as well as positive financial incentives.
- Money for any incentives should come out of the consolidated government fund not a levy.
- $1.50 a tonne levy is ridiculous for the local authority.
- Kaipara has too few people and is too dispersed. The economies are all wrong for the development of waste infrastructure therefore we need to focus on reducing waste.
- Put pressure on producers, not local authorities who do not have the rating base or infrastructure to address the waste issue.
Institutions and legislation
- We do not need another bureaucracy.
- Money will be sucked up in the administration of the authority.
- The existing political process is fine. Money should come from the consolidated fund.
- Government needs to provide leadership through legislation and other tools. The New Zealand Waste Strategy 2002 is good but far too slow. There is a lack of legislation development.
- There is variability in the standards throughout New Zealand. The approach taken with the drinking water standards is good. We need more of this (waste water, solid waste, trade waste).
Product Stewardship
- Industry has been slow to adopt voluntary product stewardship
- Container deposit legislation needs to be introduced as in Western Australia.
- MfE could have taken more of a leadership role and made it happen faster.
- Legislation has been slow.
- We need an informed debate about container deposit legislation. It seems that there may be some issues that may not make this the right approach. MfE needs to make sure we understand and know what these are. Local government does not have time to work out all the details of an informed policy approach. Local authorities rely on MfE to keep informed. Local authorities are often lobbied by people about different approaches (e.g. container deposit legislation) and expect MfE to be able to provide a neutral view on the pros and con of different approaches.
National environmental standards
Contaminated sites
- Northland Regional Council will not release the contaminated land database.
- There are problems with ex-horticultural land that may make it unsuitable for domestic living.
- In 1998 the “one hectare rule” led to subdivision of the countryside. Now no one knows what is left on old sites, for example sheep dips or ex-horticultural sites.
- Urban needs strategic direction, not just guidance on implementation.
General comments
- National Environmental Standards are useful when you need national guidance for local and regional issues.
- There is discussion about poor air quality, domestic emissions, and exceedances of the air quality standards.
- Assistance would be useful to retrofit low-socioeconomic housing in Whangarei and help move towards warm housing. Building consent applications are quite high.
- The Building Act and the RMA are interlinked. There should be a requirement for homes to have insulation and double-glazing.
- There are differing telecommunications regimes in different regions. What level of noise is acceptable?
- The District Plan in Whangarei is effects-based and enabling.
- Water supply is an issue in overpopulated areas. New dams are required.
- A Carter Holt sawmill is being built near new development.
- A rail link between Oakley and Marsden Point is needed for industry.
- There is a need for a new waste water treatment plant.
- There is huge growth in the Port area where new houses are sandwiched in with new industry.
Water
Water allocation and usage
- There is a need for integrated management of land use activities and water quality.
- There is a lack of good information on which to base good decision-making. There are no allocation policies.
- There is support for tools to manage and allocate the resource.
- We need to have a better appreciation of the economic value of water.
- There is a conflict between land use and water quality.
- There is a lack of good information on water allocation and quality.
Land use
- Whangarei is not a rich region - there are farmers with second jobs. There are high taxes for the population.
- Good information is needed, including examples of what works.
- There is major residential development along the river and coast with 7% growth per annum. There is land use change on both the east and west coasts.
- One approach to development over coastal aquifers is to restrict coastal developments in to planning designations.
- A monitoring forum exists. Sharing monitoring data is beneficial.
- Managing water resources is about having administration boundaries.
- It could be useful for district councils to make regional councils aware of land use consent applications. Northland Regional Council is working on a protocol with district councils to ensure the regional council sights applications.
- Can best practice/sharing practices assist the Regional Council with the review of the Regional Policy Statement?
- High staff turnover at the regional council and district councils impacts on decision making.
- The Environment Enhancement Fund is strengthening and is now $0.5 million.
- Information on stream flows is needed. Information on land-use changes is also needed.
- A taskforce to help gather/inform choices on information would be useful.
- Growth should be encouraged in some areas of the Far North. Other areas in the Far North should be protected.
- Rating policy is influencing subdivision choices by land-users.
- Land use cross-over should be addressed via the Regional Policy Statement.
- We should assess the relative issues nationally and concentrate on those.
- The district and regional council’s protocol on land-use applications is working well.
- Education in terms of land use practices is needed.
Flood risk management and catchment management
- Upper catchment management is important in relation to sediments and flood risk.
- It is important to link tree planting with water quality and flooding.
- In Northland, moving from issue to issue by catchment means we are always a bit behind. Flexibility of planning is important.
- The Government must make the links between climate change, flooding and the water programme.
- Information on natural variability is required to address climate change.
- Greater clarity from central government is needed as to what regional councils should be doing.
- Understanding of the economics of water is needed.
- Small catchments and small communities make it difficult to “set aside” areas for certain purposes. Flooding has the same issues with affordability yet keeping local choices
- Information gathering takes time but is important. Best practice examples are needed.
General interest
Governance
- We need to look at the balance between general land use and private property rights. What is government’s role in relation to this?
- The political climate in Whangarei means that RMA (and other) issues are quickly polarised (but courage is needed to go with convictions).
- Consultation associated with the RMA is not always understood by the public. Different options are seen as being set in stone, i.e. the public do not understand the purpose of pre-notifications consultation.
- Capacity building is needed before consultation on RMA issues such as landscape and significant natural areas.
- The RMA allows the community to develop a consensus on the value system it wants to adopt if the process works properly.
- The balance between general land use and private property rights needs to be considered. What is the governance role in relation to this?
- People need to be encouraged in relation to private property rights i.e. not forced by rules but guided by standards. The RMA toolbox needs to be flexible in this respect.
- The RMA needs to be more cross referenced to other legislation i.e. HSNO.
- There is a real problem with the AMA legislation. How do councils allocate the resource? Is it on a “first in, first served” basis?
Climate change
General comments
- Landcare is a conduit for agricultural mitigation. Hokianga has examples of sustainable agriculture.
- Figures are preferred instead of percentages to convey information on emission mitigation. Information packs on the facts of climate change would also be worthwhile.
Environmental reporting
ENZ07
- Why is there no full State of the Environment report like the first one? It is expected. The report talked about national indicators, but nothing came of it. The first SOE report was a good compromise and was quite useful. It was expected that a similar report would be produced every five years to track trends. The report has lost coherence.
- It is not known whether things have got better or worse nationally in the ten years since the last SOE report in 1997. Councils incorporated some indicators into monitoring strategy but nothing has been heard since.
- How much of the 1997 State of the Environment information will MfE cover?
- Will information in ENZ07 be broken down to regions and districts? E.g. impact of changes in land use? Will comparisons be made at district levels?
- The report should indicate how things are changing over time (since the last state of the environment report in 1997).
- Does oceans include coastline? There should be a separate section on coastal water quality.
- Are the PCE's recommendations taken into account?
- Does the report have a biodiversity section? There are threats to waterways e.g. didymo.
- A separate biodiversity chapter is required. Biodiversity loss was the greatest threat identified in the 1997 report.
- Biosecurity is a very important part. How well are protected areas being monitored? What other regions have covenants? What is the total land area under formal protection?
General comments
- How much are future scenarios taken into account in environmental reporting? For example, the effects of subdivisions are not seen in entirety for some time. How do we account for future effects?
- The value of national landscapes is a pressing issue.
- We need a consistent approach to develop a set of national indicators that tie in with district and regional information and not keep changing them.
- Include more difficult aspects such as urban amenity values, biosecurity, and rural subdivisions. Guidance from MfE is needed on these issues.
- Protection of valuable soils should be represented in SOE reports. How much class 1 soil are we loosing?
- There should be an emphasis on tracking change over time.
- National indicators need to be relevant to regional councils and district councils. New indicators are needed, for example on productive soil loss.
- A focus on biodiversity and biosecurity is important.
- A consistent approach is required.
- Good data is needed on water quality and water quantity in each catchment.
- Consider reporting things like storm surge (coastal erosion) in the oceans or climate change chapters.
- Will MfE look into developing a landform inventory e.g. to identify outstanding landscapes and natural hazards?
Last updated: 27 February 2008
