Pukekohe market gardeners say the growing loss of land in the area to developers has impacted where they can grow crops as urban sprawl eats up the city's most productive land. Photo: Stuff / Chris McKeen
Environment Minister David Parker announced on Sunday new standards to help safeguard some of the country's most productive land from urban sprawl.
But Auckland Council planning committee chairman Chris Darby says the government needs to clarify whether councils now have greater powers to reject private plan changes from developers before they reach an independent hearings process.
Cabinet signed off the National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) last week.
In a statement on Sunday, Parker said it would prevent the loss of prime horticultural land, in areas like Pukekohe, and protect it from inappropriate subdivision and development.
"We need to house our people and to feed them too. Our cities and towns need to grow but not at the expense of the land that's best suited to grow our food," he said.
"The NPS-HPL will help protect our best growing areas so Kiwis continue to have access to leafy greens and other healthy foods."
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Under the changes councils will be required to identify, map and manage highly productive land to ensure it's available for primary production.
Darby said he wanted to clarify if the Auckland Council now had greater powers to reject private plan changes by developers, which involve prime land, before they can be considered by independent hearings commissioners.
While the committee can currently reject such plan changes, it has to have good legal grounds to do so and can face legal action if it doesn't.
Darby said as a result councils often have no other choice but to accept such applications, leaving the final decisions to independent hearings commissioners, which eats up council resources.
Environment Minister David Parker says the new National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) will prevent the loss of prime horticultural land, in areas like Pukekohe, and protect it from inappropriate subdivision and development. Photo: Stuff / Chris McKeen
"We can recover the costs, but it takes council staff away from doing other things in the planning area."
Darby said while the new standards were positive, he said he still had grave concerns about the amount of highly productive, food growing land that was being lost to housing and development in areas like Pukekohe.
Fulton Hogan Land Development chief executive Graeme Causer said while he hadn't looked at the new NPS-HPL in detail, it was too early to say what impact it would have on developers.
He said the long-term implications of the changes would most likely come down to what areas councils identified as highly productive land.
But an Environment Court decision released last year said the cumulative loss of Auckland's prime land was accelerating, with urban sprawl set to eat up to 31,270 hectares of the city's most productive land over the next 35 years.
In a statement, a Ministry for the Environment spokesperson said the NPS-HPL did not give councils any new powers to reject private plan changes.
However, it does change the issues they must consider when assessing them. Whether a council decides to reject a private plan change upfront depends on the circumstances of the case.
"Generally, we expect that once councils have fully implemented the National Policy Statement for Urban Development and NPS-HPL there will be fewer private plan changes, as there will be clearer strategic direction."
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