Te Rārangi Wā ā-Arotake i te Mahere ā-Rohe
District Plan Review timeline

The current District Plan came into effect in 2000 and it needs an update. Due to the Resource Management Act 1991, we have a legal requirement to review the District Plan every 10 years. This is so we can make sure that we enable all the latest national policies and regulations.

Our timeline

There are three phases to the District Plan Review.

1. The Spatial Plan.
2. The Draft District Plan.
3. The final stage is the Proposed District Plan and its consultation.

What's happened so far

Draft District Plan engagement

In November 2021, we went to the public with the Draft District Plan to get feedback. We had 1,034 submissions with a wide range of views on a variety of topics.

The submission responses were analysed and key themes identified. We then created a detailed report and a summary report.

What's next?

Proposed District Plan engagement

Make a submission

Submissions are open from 18 July 2022 until 12 September 2022. This is your opportunity to review the Proposed District Plan and make a submission.

• If you'd like to find out how to make a submission, visit Make a submission.
• If you'd like to known what's in the Proposed District Plan, visit Key topics and information.

Further submissions 

Once all Proposed District Plan submissions have been collected and published, submitters are given ten working days to make further submission on any of the submissions already made. People may want to do this to show support for a submission, or to raise concerns with a submission that is proposing changes to the Proposed District Plan.

Getting the new District Plan approved

There are two separate processes for the Proposed District Plan to become operative.

1. Some parts of the plan must go through a streamlined process known as the Intensification Streamlined Planning Process (ISPP). These are the parts of the plan which are related to housing intensification relating to the Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and other matters) Amendment Act 2021. This covers roughly 60 percent of the plan.
2. The rest of the plan will go through the normal process, as set out in the first schedule of the Resource Management Act 1991.

The two processes will happen at the same time.

The key difference between the two processes is that the ISPP does not allow appeals of decisions.

As a result, the timeframes between the two processes are different. The ISPP takes approximately one year until they are legally operative. The traditional process can take between five to ten years for all provisions to become legally operative, due to appeals being resolved.