Horizons’ One Plan still in limbo

Earlier this year Fish and Game and Environmental Defence Society (EDS) challenged the way HRC was implementing the One Plan and the Environment Court agreed, criticising the council’s implementation of the plan.

For the last three months the council has been trying to find ways to implement the One Plan in its present form and to the criteria set out by the court.

Given this decision by the court, HRC has been working on new guidance notes for new consent applicants which they are required to do by law. But whether these requirements can be met by new applicants or will attract them to even apply for a consent, remains to be seen.

HRC’s strategy and regulation manager, Dr Nick Peet, says the court decision makes the complexity of the consent process even more challenging than it was. Preparing the new guidance notes – essentially the criteria on which a consent can be granted – has thrown up thorny issues, he says.

These relate to the ability of farmers to prepare an assessment of the cumulative effects of their operation on the environment.

These guidance notes are expected to be completed by August.

Peet also says HRC is working on modelling the impact on farm businesses of the requirement for farms to meet the N leaching minima in the One Plan.

“If dairy farmers apply now for a consent we will have to consider it and process their application; there is no formal moratorium to stop people applying for a consent. But the guidance notes intended to help farmers is going to be useful, and I think most farmers will wait for it to come out.”

In addition, Peet and colleagues have been preparing policy options for the council, including how the council will give effect to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management.

Also on councillors’ minds is whether the One Plan should be changed; calls have arisen for a ‘plan change’ which would in effect start the eleven year process of One Plan all over again.

“While governance can’t get involved in the design of the guidance documents, they have a role in stating whether the plan is fit for purpose.

“There are options to work through including a plan change, but even if a plan change was to be an option, the present plan as directed by the Environment Court remains operative and we have to give effect to it,” says Peet.

Given that Fish and Game and EDS have won a ‘victory’ in the Environment Court, any plan change could be lengthy and costly.

The present status of One Plan affects horticulturalists as much as dairy farmers.

This week DairyNZ is running a forum on One Plan for dairy farmers in Dannevirke, but with only a slight hope of getting certainty.

Says Peet, “The message from us to farmers is that we understand and appreciate they are thrown back into uncertainty and want to know what’s going to happen so that they can move forward with certainty.

“We are working to give them a clear pathway and guidance through the consent process. We are taking time to design that and test it with external planners.... That may take a few more weeks but will be worth it.

“We don’t want farmers [having to endure] an unnecessarily long consent processes because something in the guidance material isn’t correct.”

Despite the council’s best efforts, the impression is that it feels hamstrung by the court decision it now must work under, yet a return to the past is all but impossible.

Also, any long term solution could be several years and several million dollars away.