What will the National Planning Framework look like? The Devil could be in the Detail.

The draft exposure Natural and Built Environment (NBA) Bill has, understandably, attracted the most attention of the upcoming planning reforms. Even so, it's easy to overlook certain aspects.

For instance, with the NBA expected to be enacted before the end of the parliamentary term, what will the proposed National Planning Framework (NPF) look like? The draft exposure gives us the scope but not the final wording, which will be made as regulations.
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For environmental professionals with experience in the UK, the name National Planning Framework probably sounds very familiar. Ten years ago, the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) was introduced in England.

Tim Goodall

Senior Planner
Kāhu Environmental

The NPPF came into force in 2012 as the government binned a whole series of Planning Policy Statements on a range of national issues – spatial planning, housing, coastal planning, flood risk, etc. As the ministerial foreword proudly proclaimed, it replaced "over a thousand pages of national policy with around fifty, written simply and clearly".

​Lengthy, stand-alone policy statements were replaced with a few paragraphs. But despite the Planning Minister's statement to Parliament in 2014 that planning "should not be the exclusive preserve of lawyers, developers or town hall officials"¹,  planning lawyers have not struggled for work over the last decade.

The most relevant criticism of the NPPF is the content not the word count.

Will the upcoming NPF maintain good policies in full? Can they be improved?

There are practical advantages to condensing and simplifying policy. Time-short planners, like those ploughing through consents at councils, while wanting to do a great job, don't necessarily have time to wade through a whole raft of policy documents hunting for the odd relevant sentence for a non-contentious report.
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Indeed, the most relevant criticism of the NPPF is the content not the word count. Will the upcoming NPF maintain good policies in full? Can they be improved? If the NPF consolidates the various National Policy Statements, the main issue will not be their collective demise but how well a successor framework retains key positive principles, such as Te Mana o Te Wai, which protects the health and well-being of our freshwater.

Anyone who has witnessed planning lawyers at hearings pull apart seemingly innocuous sentences or interrogate the meaning of a comma so seriously you start to wonder what they're putting in their coffee, will know that the wording of not just the Acts replacing the RMA, but also the NPF, will be minutely scrutinised for loopholes or drafting errors that can be exploited.

For anyone who wants to provide better environmental outcomes for Aotearoa New Zealand, and preserve and improve the best aspects of the National Policy Statements, it will soon be time to consider the upcoming NPF in detail. The changes have far-reaching implications so it's important to seek good advice from professionals who understand the planning reforms, including its pitfalls.
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¹ https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/local-planning, 2014