Rules - be gone!

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Fred99

13684 posts

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#150422 22-Jul-2014 10:49

A new government task-force has been announced to " weed out pedantic and unnecessary rules that frustrate property owners and councils alike".
What chance does this have?

MikeB4

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#1093546 22-Jul-2014 10:56

A complete re-write of teh Resource Management shambles would be a nice start. Not going to hold my breath.

wasabi2k

2096 posts

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#1093550 22-Jul-2014 11:08

The cynic in me thinks it is a PR stunt to show they are doing something to reduce the difficulties and time involved in building sorely needed new housing, honest.

The optimist in me thinks there are plenty of things that can be majorly improved, particularly in the wake of the supercity consolidation and the disaster that is the RMA.

RunningMan

8953 posts

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#1093551 22-Jul-2014 11:09

Good idea, as long as there aren't too many rules involved in making a submission ;-)

Dratsab

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#1093552 22-Jul-2014 11:14

They need to take a seriously hard look at the unbelievably high costs councils charge as well.

kiwitrc

4123 posts

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#1093553 22-Jul-2014 11:16

I guess if enough people participate then something might get done but I fear local govt is too entrenched in our lives to be removed easily. The whole consents thing needs to be thrown out and started again.

MikeB4

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#1093563 22-Jul-2014 11:19

With Paula Bennett involved I believed things could happen, if it were Jerry Brownlee it would be a dead duck.

cr250bromo

222 posts

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#1093587 22-Jul-2014 12:17

The Resource Management Act (RMA) was passed by National in 1991... they have had over 15 years to repeal/amend it if they really didn't want it. My guess is that any changes will only be minor.

I suspect the reason things are so expensive with councils now is when the leaky building crisis most people turned to taking the council to court as the "last man standing" for signing off on the building in the first place. So now the compliance costs are super high so that if anything happens later down the line the council can prove it wasn't anything wrong on their end. I guess this thinking comes from people saying "the council should pay" or "the government should pay" forgetting what they are really saying is "the rate payers should pay" or "the tax payer should pay".

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Fred99

13684 posts

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#1093645 22-Jul-2014 12:48

portunus: The Resource Management Act (RMA) was passed by National in 1991... they have had over 15 years to repeal/amend it if they really didn't want it. My guess is that any changes will only be minor.

I suspect the reason things are so expensive with councils now is when the leaky building crisis most people turned to taking the council to court as the "last man standing" for signing off on the building in the first place. So now the compliance costs are super high so that if anything happens later down the line the council can prove it wasn't anything wrong on their end. I guess this thinking comes from people saying "the council should pay" or "the government should pay" forgetting what they are really saying is "the rate payers should pay" or "the tax payer should pay".

Yes. The RMA is regularly scapegoated by individuals and organisations as being "anti-progress". "Progress" is of course defined there by those with self-interest at heart. If someone planned to build an offal rendering plant next door to your house, a half-way house for sex offenders next door to your child's primary school, or to dump toxic waste into a river where you fished, then you'd be glad that some rules are in place, as you'd hardly see those plans as "progress".