Resource Management Act 119 (RMA) to be replaced with a new planning system

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New Zealand Government is replacing the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) with a new planning system.  

New Zealand is in the middle of a major shift in how it manages land use, infrastructure, housing, and the environment.

For more than 30 years, development and environmental decisions have been guided by the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). While the RMA was designed to promote sustainable management of natural and physical resources, it has increasingly been criticised for being complex, slow, expensive, and unpredictable, particularly for housing, infrastructure, and major projects.

In response, the Government has committed to replacing the RMA with a new planning framework.

Why Replace the RMA?

The main concerns about the RMA include:

  • Lengthy consent timeframes
  • High compliance and legal costs
  • Overlapping national and local rules
  • Difficulty delivering infrastructure and housing at scale
  • Uncertainty for developers, councils, and investors

Many industry groups, particularly in construction, infrastructure, and local government, argue that the current system makes it too difficult to deliver roads, renewable energy, water infrastructure, and new housing fast enough to meet demand.

What Is Replacing It?

The Government has proposed a new resource management system aimed at:

  • Simplifying planning rules
  • Standardising regulations nationally
  • Reducing consent delays
  • Supporting economic growth
  • Maintaining environmental protections

The intention is to create a clearer balance between environmental safeguards and the need to enable development.

While previous reform attempts introduced replacement legislation, the current Government has signalled a different approach focused more heavily on property rights, infrastructure delivery, and reducing red tape.

What This Means

The replacement of the RMA represents one of the most significant regulatory changes in New Zealand’s planning system in decades.

For councils, developers, infrastructure providers, and the civil construction sector, the changes could affect:

  • How projects are approved
  • Timeframes for consents
  • Environmental assessment requirements
  • National versus local planning controls

As the new legislation is developed and implemented, businesses operating in New Zealand’s infrastructure and property sectors will need to stay informed and prepared for a different regulatory landscape.

What the RMA Replacement Means for New Zealand’s Infrastructure Industry

New Zealand’s decision to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) marks one of the most significant regulatory shifts for the infrastructure sector in decades. For transport, water, energy and civil construction providers, the reform is less about legal theory and more about delivery certainty, pipeline visibility and risk management.

Greater Certainty Around Project Approvals

A long-standing challenge under the RMA has been the time and unpredictability associated with consents. Major infrastructure projects have often faced extended approval pathways, layered local planning rules, and appeal processes that materially delayed construction.

If the replacement framework achieves its stated goals: clearer national direction, simplified planning instruments and more streamlined approval pathways, infrastructure providers may benefit from shorter pre-construction phases and improved programme certainty. For large capital projects, certainty around timing can be as commercially significant as cost control.

Stronger National Direction and Consistency

Under the RMA, regional and district plans have varied considerably across the country. For contractors and consultants operating nationwide, this has meant navigating different environmental thresholds, zoning rules and consenting expectations in each region.

A more nationally consistent planning system could reduce duplication and compliance complexity. Greater standardisation may allow infrastructure providers to plan investment and resourcing with more confidence, particularly those delivering multi-region transport, water and renewable energy projects.

Acceleration of Housing-Enabling Infrastructure

One of the political drivers behind reform is unlocking housing supply. That inevitably requires enabling infrastructure: water networks, stormwater systems, transport links and bulk earthworks.

If planning barriers are reduced, demand for civil construction services tied to subdivision and urban expansion could increase. This would place further pressure on already constrained skills pools across civil engineering, project management, water infrastructure and surveying.

Renewable Energy and Strategic Infrastructure

Renewable energy and grid infrastructure have frequently encountered consenting delays under the RMA. A more streamlined framework for nationally significant projects could improve the pace of wind, solar and transmission developments, particularly as electrification and energy resilience remain high on the policy agenda.

For contractors specialising in transmission, geotechnical works and heavy civil construction, this could strengthen medium-term pipeline visibility.

Environmental Standards Will Remain

While reform is aimed at reducing inefficiency, it does not signal the removal of environmental safeguards. Infrastructure projects will still need to address biodiversity, water quality, cultural engagement and climate resilience considerations.

In fact, clearer national environmental standards may result in more consistent, and in some cases higher expectations. The industry should anticipate ongoing demand for environmental engineering capability and structured stakeholder engagement processes.

Transition Risk and Workforce Pressure

In the short term, regulatory change can create uncertainty. Councils will need to update planning instruments and there may be legal testing of new provisions. Transitional periods often slow decision-making before improvements are realised.

If consenting timeframes do shorten and project pipelines accelerate, workforce capacity will become a critical constraint. New Zealand already faces shortages across civil engineering and infrastructure delivery disciplines. A faster approval environment without a larger talent pool could drive salary inflation and increased reliance on overseas recruitment.

The Strategic Outlook

The replacement of the RMA represents a structural reset rather than a minor legislative amendment. If implemented effectively, it has the potential to reduce planning risk, increase delivery certainty and support infrastructure acceleration, particularly in housing-enabling works and renewable energy.

However, regulatory reform alone will not solve workforce shortages or funding constraints. For infrastructure businesses, the opportunity lies in preparing early: strengthening delivery capability, securing talent pipelines and positioning strategically for a potentially faster and more standardised planning environment.

Civil Contractors New Zealand supportive of proposed changes

Civil Contractors New Zealand (CCNZ) has welcomed the Government’s proposed replacement to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), with hopes the proposed new system will create a simpler, faster and more effective structure for New Zealand’s civil construction industry.     

CCNZ Chief Executive Alan Pollard said the country had long been ‘hamstrung’ with development rules that did not enable growth or protect the environment, and lauded the Government’s proposed new approach as clear, sensible and pragmatic.

Mr Pollard said current consultation requirements have incentivised delay and litigation, often without a solid case, rather than providing an integrated framework to protect the environment and support sustainable development of infrastructure and communities. 

“The Resource Management Act has been widely panned, and for good reason. The current system has resulted in gross inefficiency and deadlock in regional infrastructure construction planning, without corresponding benefit to the economy or natural environment.”

Projected to save around $13.3b and slash up to half of consents, the new system represented a great opportunity to resolve longstanding deadlocks and complexities arising from the current RMA, unlocking progress and better environmental outcomes, he said.

“It’s great to have clearer and more efficient rules. It’s clarity we should seek here, and the new system will be less open to the variable interpretation that has resulted in paralysis. We have a great opportunity to escape decades of delay and achieve benefit for communities.”

CCNZ emphasised the reforms were a great opportunity for all political parties to escape the historic deadlock and work together to create a robust system that met the country’s needs.

“Seeing the priority the government is placing on infrastructure is a welcome signal for the country’s future. We can achieve a lot of good things here, and I encourage everyone to get behind it and create a simpler, better system that works for the good of the country.”

Mr Pollard said the civil construction industry stood ready with countless key examples of where the system could be improved, and looked forward to providing practical perspective on how the country could achieve more sustainable development.

Confusion around the enforcement of rules set under current national direction in the existing system had led to the situation where soil made up 60 per cent of material to landfill, at the additional cost of around $2.4 billion to the country’s infrastructure construction bill, he said.

“A key example of the waste occurring under the current RMA is soil management. The current rules are rapidly inflating our national infrastructure bill and leading to very poor environmental outcomes. It’s a situation we urgently need to resolve.”

Mr Pollard said a simplification of plans and national directions would resolve ‘baked in’ complexities in the system and provide clarity for local authorities, reducing more than 100 plans to 17 and resulting in more consistency, and better use of local government capacity. 

“We are broadly supportive of the framing of the proposed changes to streamline the resource management system – to reduce complexity, and provide clearer national direction,” says Engineering New Zealand Chief Executive Dr Richard Templer.

“These changes appear to be good news for engineers and have the potential to enable faster consenting, reduce compliance costs and support more consistent infrastructure delivery.”

“We are also pleased at the significant mention of the importance of horizontal infrastructure work and civil engineering in these announced changes.”

However, Engineering New Zealand sees opportunities to strengthen the reforms and note that the devil is in the detail.

“We are still missing a clear plan for local government reform – which will be crucial for implementation and ensuring interdependencies are carefully managed across the significant level of law change councils will be expected to design and lead. Resource Management change is not the only moving part councils are expected to implement. We are calling on the Government to deliver on this alongside these proposed changes,” says Templer.

“And while the Bills include a clear goal of protecting the environment and indigenous biodiversity, it will be dependent on the successful implementation and enforcement of clear national and regional standards. We look forward to learning more about the design and delivery of these.”

Engineering New Zealand is looking forward to submitting on these changes – reviewing the points above, as well as other considerations, such as how the system will be governed. Engineering is fundamental to ensuring the new system is technically sound, practical on the ground, and ready to meet future demands. We are very keen to work with Government as this work progresses.

Source: Engineering New Zealand

Source: Civil Contractors New Zealand

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