Regional and District Councils have historically had an explicit function to control the adverse effects of the storage, use, disposal or transportation of hazardous substances under the Resource Management Act (RMA).
Since this function was first included in the Resource Management Act, the following Acts have been passed:
- Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 (“HSNO Act”)
- Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (“HSW Act”)
- The Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 (“RLAA”)
As a result of these Acts, many existing Resource Management Act controls on hazardous substances duplicate those in place under other legislation.
The intent of the change to the Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 was to ensure councils only place additional controls on hazardous substances if they are necessary to control effects under the Resource Management Act that are not covered by the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms or Health and Safety at Work Acts.
PC 91 reviewed the hazardous substances provisions within this new legislative framework and proposed removing District Plan rules on hazardous substances that duplicate other regulations.
PC91 proposed to retain objectives and policies relating to hazardous substances to ensure that any issues are appropriately assessed at resource consent stage.
The original submissions and further submissions will now be analysed. A hearing date is yet to be set for the first quarter of 2023.
The following documents contain information on the plan change notification and consultation.
A hearing was held at 9:00am on Thursday 9 March 2023 in the May Bain Room, Whangārei Central Library, 5 Rust Avenue, Whangārei.
The following documents contain information on the Hazardous Substances Hearing.
Council hearing documents
The following documents contain information on the recommendations of the independent commissioner, and Council’s decision on these recommendations.
Recommendation from the Independent Commissioner and Councils Decision
This plan change is Operative as at 4 October 2023, as per the Seal of Approval below:
Council Seal of Approval(PDF, 1MB)