Planning documents and processes

The Resource Management Act establishes a hierarchy of policy statements and plans which seek to give substance to the sustainable management purpose of the Act with increasing particularity both as to substantive content and locality. ⁵⁸⁷ . This hierarchy of planning instruments is comprised of:

• National Policy Statements (including the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement) – which state objectives and policies for matters of national significance that are relevant to achieving sustainable management.
• National Environmental Standards – which are regulations that prescribe technical standards, methods or other requirements for environmental matters.
• National Planning Standards – which set out requirements relating to the structure, format or content of regional policy statements and plans. Standards must give effect to national policy statements and be consistent with national environmental standards.
• Regional policy statements – which must give effect to national policy statements and enable regional councils to provide broad direction and a framework for resource management within their regions.
• Regional plans – which must give effect to national policy statements (including the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement) and regional policy statements.
• District plans – which must not be inconsistent with regional plans and must give effect to national policy statements (including the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement) and regional policy statements.

Last updated at 5:37PM on January 8, 2018