New planning laws are now in place. The Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions & Transport is publishing guidance, tools and updates on this website as the new planning system is introduced in stages.
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Local government
Find out what the new planning system means for councils, including planning responsibilities, consenting, environmental limits, compliance and implementation support.
Overview
The new planning system is intended to make planning and environmental management more consistent and easier to work with over time.
Councils will work with clearer national direction, fewer planning documents, more nationally consistent plan structures and content, and new responsibilities for implementing environmental limits and regional combined plans.
Councils will continue to play a central role across the system, including in plan preparation, consenting, permitting, monitoring, compliance and implementation. More issues will be addressed earlier through national direction and regional planning, allowing later decisions to focus on the issues that still need to be worked through.
What the new planning system means for local government
Defining council roles across the two Acts
The new system separates land use planning and natural resource management into two frameworks. This helps clarify which parts of the system district and regional councils will be responsible for under the Planning Act and Natural Environment Act.
The Planning Act covers land use, housing growth, infrastructure, urban and rural development, natural hazard risks as they relate to land use and development, and other land use planning matters.
District, city and unitary councils will continue to be responsible for planning and managing land use and development in their areas.
This includes urban and rural planning, housing growth, infrastructure, subdivision, and managing natural hazard risks related to land use and development.
Territorial authorities will continue to be responsible for managing activities on the surface of water bodies.
The Natural Environment Act focuses on managing, protecting and enhancing the natural environment, including freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil and indigenous biodiversity, and natural hazard risks as they relate to natural resources.
Regional councils, including unitary authorities, will continue to be responsible for managing and protecting natural resources and the wider environment within their regions.
The goals of each Act help shape national direction, regional combined plans, consent and permit decisions, and compliance activities.
Together, the two Acts set out how councils will work across the planning system.
Applying clearer national direction
National policy direction and national standards sit near the top of the system hierarchy. They will make the goals of the Acts more specific and set requirements for how they are to be achieved in regional combined plans, plan rules, consents, permits and other decisions that councils are responsible for preparing or making.
This is intended to help councils and other decision-makers settle more matters earlier, so plan-making, consenting and permitting can focus on the issues that still need to be resolved at that level.
These tools will give councils clearer direction when preparing plans or making consent and permit decisions. Councils will need to apply national policy direction and national standards where required by legislation.
This should support more consistent planning and decision-making and reduce the need to revisit the same issues in every plan or consent process.
Preparing regional combined plans
Regional combined plans will sit below national policy direction and national standards in the new system. Councils will use these plans to translate national direction into regional spatial planning, land use rules and natural environment rules.
Councils will have fewer planning documents to prepare and maintain. National policy direction and national standards will address more matters at a national level, while new regional combined plans will replace existing RMA plans for each region.
Councils will play a central role in preparing and implementing regional combined plans. These plans include:
- a regional spatial plan, which sets the long-term strategic direction for how a region grows and changes
- land use plans, which set rules for how land within each territorial authority district can be used and developed
- a natural environment plan, which sets rules and requirements for how natural resources within the region are used, protected and managed.
Together, these plans should help regions work through key issues earlier, coordinate growth and infrastructure planning, manage natural hazards and environmental limits, and provide a clearer basis for later consent and permit decisions.
Planning for growth, infrastructure and land supply
The Planning Act includes goals to enable:
- competitive urban land markets by making land available to create abundant development opportunities for residential and business use
- infrastructure to be provided to meet and respond to current and future demand.
Councils will help put these goals into practice through national instruments, regional spatial plans, land use plans and planning decisions.
National instruments and regional spatial plans will help councils identify where:
- housing, business growth and infrastructure are expected
- land may need to be available for residential and business use
- infrastructure investment may be needed to support development.
National standards will provide clearer direction on how councils consider infrastructure capacity when preparing plans and making consenting and permitting decisions.
An independent statutory officer will monitor whether councils are making enough land available for homes and businesses.
Managing environmental limits
Regional councils, including unitary authorities, will play a key role in managing natural resources and applying environmental limits under the Natural Environment Act.
Environmental limits will be set through national standards and natural environment plans. These will set boundaries for the effects activities can have on freshwater, coastal water, air, land, soil and indigenous biodiversity.
Regional councils will apply these limits through natural environment plans and use consent and permit processes, monitoring, action plans and other tools to help manage activities within them.
If a limit is breached, or is likely to be breached, councils will need to prepare an action plan showing how the breach will be avoided or addressed over time.
Regulatory relief and property rights
As councils prepare land use plans and natural environment plans, they will need to consider how some proposed rules affect landowners’ reasonable use of land. These requirements apply only to rules on specified topics.
Under the Planning Act, these topics are:
- significant historic heritage
- outstanding natural landscapes or features
- a site of significance to Māori
- areas of high natural character in the coastal environment, wetlands, lakes, rivers, or their margins.
Under the Natural Environment Act, these topics are a site of significance to Māori, and terrestrial indigenous biodiversity to the extent it relates to an identifiable area. When councils propose rules on these topics, they must:
- assess whether the rules are appropriate
- consider their likely impact on the reasonable use of land
- justify the application of the rules, including by referring to data and evidence.
If a council believes a proposed rule is reasonably likely to have a significant impact on the reasonable use of land, they must include a relief framework for those rules in their plan. After a specified rule becomes operative, councils must:
- implement the relief framework in their plan
- carry out a relief assessment
- notify eligible persons of the results of that assessment.
Councils must provide relief in line with the framework when the adverse impact of a specified rule is assessed as significant.
Relief could include monetary payments, rate or fee reductions, extra development rights, land swaps, or targeted grants. Relief does not have to match the impact of the rule, but similar impacts must be treated consistently.
Landowners can ask the council to review how the relief framework has been applied to their property. They can also appeal to the Planning Tribunal.
Councils will need to put processes in place to administer these requirements under the new system.
Processing consents and permits
Once national instruments, regional spatial plans, land use plans and natural environment plans are in place, consent and permit decisions will focus on the effects and issues that still need to be considered for individual activities.
Councils will continue to make consent and permit decisions, supported by clearer national direction, more consistent rules and matters that have already been worked through at a national or regional level.
More activities will be able to go ahead without a consent or permit if they comply with relevant national standards, national rules or plan rules. Over time, this should result in:
- fewer consent and permit applications over time
- more standardised information requirements
- fewer consents or permits being publicly notified or notified to fewer people
- fewer opportunities to reopen matters that have already been settled through national instruments, spatial planning, land use planning or natural environment planning
- more focus on applications that have greater effects or raise matters that still need to be assessed.
Councils will continue to process consent applications under existing RMA plans during the transition.
See transitional consenting guidance.
Monitoring and enforcing compliance
Councils will continue to monitor activities and enforce planning and environmental rules. This includes checking that people are complying with the rules, consents, permits, national standards and other requirements that apply.
During the transition, councils will continue to carry out compliance and enforcement activities under the RMA. From the specified transition date, these activities will be carried out under the Planning Act and Natural Environment Act.
Any enforcement action already underway at the specified transition date will continue under the relevant transitional arrangements.
The new Acts largely retain the compliance and enforcement approaches used under the RMA.
The Acts also introduce new tools to respond to breaches. This includes stronger penalties for the most serious offences, such as higher fines and removing profits from offending, as well as options for less serious breaches, such as enforceable undertakings and civil penalties.
Local authorities will also be required to publish compliance and enforcement information and prepare strategies to improve compliance. We will provide more guidance on these requirements over time.
Using digital tools and data
Data and digital tools will support councils and others across the planning system, from preparing plans and processing consents and permits through to monitoring, compliance and enforcement.
Central government is investing in the data and digital systems needed to support the new planning system. Early work includes improving access to important data, developing common standards, designing shared digital services and building the technology needed to support the system.
Over time, these foundations will support new digital tools and a future planning platform that make it easier to find planning information, prepare and manage planning documents, process consent and permit applications, and share information.
The aim is to make planning information easier to access, make the system easier to use, and give people greater confidence in planning decisions.
Shared digital services will be available online, helping people complete planning activities more easily and efficiently. Better connected data will support more informed planning decisions and help councils respond to risks such as flooding.
Budget 2026 includes investment in the New Zealand Flood Map to support the National Adaptation Framework. The map will provide a single, trusted and nationally consistent picture of flood risk across the country and help people understand flood risk where they live. It will also support better planning decisions, more resilient infrastructure and improved preparedness for climate impacts.
Preparing for implementation
Councils will need to introduce and apply key elements of the new planning system, while continuing to deliver existing planning, consenting, monitoring, compliance and enforcement functions during the transition.
This includes preparing new regional combined plans, working with iwi authorities and stakeholders, and supporting the transition from existing RMA plans and processes.
We will continue developing guidance, digital tools, data systems and implementation support to help councils prepare for the new system.
See more information on implementation and guidance.
What happens next
The new planning system will be introduced in stages. Existing RMA plans, consents, designations, enforcement processes and council responsibilities will remain in place while the new system is introduced.
A transitional consenting framework will apply before the full system is in place. This will introduce some changes to consent and notices of requirement processes while existing RMA plans continue to apply.
National instruments will be developed to guide environmental management, land use and environmental planning, spatial planning, infrastructure planning and decision-making under the new system. Initial national standards (a subset of national standards that apply to RMA consents) may also be made to support the transition.
During the transition, spatial plan committees and councils will prepare the first regional spatial plans. Committees will work with iwi authorities, infrastructure providers and others to develop draft plans that help guide future growth, public infrastructure investment, environmental management and land use across each region.
Councils will approve the draft regional spatial plans for notification. Independent hearings panels will hear submissions and make recommendations to councils (and in some cases, the Minister or a designating authority) for final decisions.
Councils, iwi authorities, infrastructure providers, community organisations and other interested groups will have opportunities to take part in national direction, regional spatial planning and plan-making.
We will add more information over time, including guidance on council responsibilities, transitional consenting, regional combined plans, compliance and enforcement, digital tools and implementation support.
Local government reform
The planning system is one part of a broader programme of reform designed to improve how New Zealand plans for growth, infrastructure, housing, environmental management and local governance.
While each reform has its own purpose, they are connected by a common goal: improving the way decisions are made about the places where people live, work, move and invest. Together, these reforms and the other core work programmes provide an opportunity to better align decisions that shape our future by supporting growth and development while protecting the natural systems that underpin New Zealand's long-term prosperity and wellbeing.
Taking a more joined-up approach can help reduce fragmentation across systems, improve the coordination of planning, regulation, funding and delivery, and provide greater certainty for communities, councils, iwi, businesses and investors.
The Government is also considering changes to local government arrangements through its Simplifying Local Government reforms, including the voluntary Head Start pathway and other local government reform initiatives.
See local Government reforms (MCERT website).
The planning system will continue to be implemented under the arrangements set out in the legislation.