Welcome to the latest instalment of our bite sized blog series about the recent changes to the RMA.

The 18th of October is just around the corner. This is when a lot of the RLAA changes will kick in, including today’s special feature: Section 95 Notification. A.k.a how councils decide whether resource consent applications are:

• publicly notified (everyone gets a chance to give feedback)
• limited notified (a limited number of people get to give feedback)
• or non-notified (public feedback isn’t necessary).

Today’s post is fairly planner-centric (including some free resources for council planners), but if you’re a Normal Person™ interested in finding out what the changes to notification might mean for you, stick with us and we’ll help you navigate the jargon. ​

Te Aranga Māori Cultural Landscape Principles in Planning10/11/2017
I’ve been reflecting on how to better represent Māori Cultural Values in planning following a recent Te Tau-a-Nuku / Nga Aho Māori Cultural Landscape Hui that I attended. 
​
​The hui focused on the Te Aranga Māori Cultural Landscape Principles: Mana, Whakapapa, Mauri Tu, Taiao, Mahi Toi, Tohu and Ahi Kā.  While there are many principles of Tikanga Māori that can be applied to our work, I could see a lot of our projects at Perception Planning already meeting the Te Aranga principles.
I thought that this could be a good time to discuss how Te Aranga principles are being applied to planning. What are they? What are we at Perception Planning doing? What are others doing? What opportunities are there to do more? If you are working in the space of applying Te Aranga Principles to planning work, we would love to hear more examples and get more discussion going.