Hurry up and wait: RMA replacement rush leaves key sectors in decision limbo

Monday, 27 July 2026

Developers, farmers and major companies are facing planning uncertainty as the Government scrambles to pass its replacement for the Resource Management Act before the election.

The Planning Bill and Natural Environment Bill would replace the 35-year-old RMA, which governs where homes, businesses and infrastructure can be built and how environmental effects are managed.

Passing the Bills before the election would remove the risk that they lapse or are rewritten by a future government. But developers say it would not immediately settle the questions that determine whether projects proceed, including consenting timeframes, infrastructure costs and how councils will apply the new regime.

Context Architects managing director Stephen Voyle said uncertainty over the timing of the reforms was creating “decision-limbo” across the development sector.

That affected projects already under way as well as those still being considered, he said.

“‘Hurry up and wait’ is not what any architect, builder or developer wants to be feeling right now. It’s another reason — alongside market flatness, the upcoming election and international turmoil — for people to sit on their hands afraid of making a wrong move.”

The cumulative effect was to slow the sector, with the full economic impact likely to take time to emerge, Voyle said.

“We may not feel the full impact for a while, but none of this is stimulating the economy. Reforms always take significant time to bed in anyway, so a delayed starting point makes it even longer.”

Federated Farmers national board member Mark Hooper said members were frustrated the replacement legislation had reached the closing weeks of the parliamentary term.

Earlier amendments to the existing RMA had taken time, while shortcomings in the first version of the replacement bills had required substantial work during the select committee process, he said.

“If the legislation doesn’t pass in the current term, there’s a high risk that, if the current coalition government is not successful in getting back in, the legislation could dramatically change,” Hooper said.

Some rural businesses were already being forced to renew long-term consents under the existing system, despite the prospect of the rules changing soon afterwards, he said.

However, he had not seen evidence that widespread uncertainty was stopping agricultural investment.

Farm debt increased by $900 million during May and June, according to Reserve Bank figures cited by Hooper, suggesting farmers were continuing to invest as dairy and red-meat returns improved.

“People are more taking advantage of the big-picture situation, and then they’re just having to navigate the consenting process the best they can,” he said.

General manager inshore for Seafood New Zealand, Tiff Bock, said while it was early days and members were still getting to grips with the proposed changes, there were some areas that appeared to have been missed out.

Bock said particular issues to do with fisheries management, and how the RMA and the Fisheries Act overlap, “which creates duplication and a lot of cost for a lot of parties involved”, did not appear to have been addressed as we would want to see in the bill.

“So we are happy to keep working with the Government on that to get it right,” she said.

“In some ways that is more important than rushing it through.”

Business Canterbury chief executive Leeann Watson said she would be surprised if the Government failed to pass the legislation before the election.

She described RMA reform as one of three major pieces of business legislation the Government had promised to complete, alongside changes to the Holidays Act and health and safety law.

“The earlier we can get them sorted, the better, because businesses don’t invest when there is a great level of uncertainty,” Watson said.

Allowing the reforms to slow down and become an election issue would add another layer of uncertainty and reduce businesses’ appetite to invest, she said.

While the replacement system is developed, some large projects are already using the separate fast-track approval regime to avoid the time and uncertainty of ordinary council consenting.

Simplicity Living managing director Shane Brealey said developments of the scale his company was undertaking were using fast-track because the normal resource consent pathway was more difficult.

“If the council’s consent service was better, if as much effort went into saying yes as went into saying no, we’d use it. But as it is, the time frames just don’t work.”

Brealey was concerned the reforms could swing too far in the other direction by stripping back provisions that supported good urban design.

“It should be a quicker process, as there will be less scope that needs to be looked at, and urban design requirements will be easier to satisfy,” he said.

“The government changes will help because reform has been a long time coming, and building developments have been getting more expensive and taking longer.”

Property downturn

Auckland developer David Whitburn, from the Whitburn Group, was less confident the reforms would materially change development conditions.

He said the existing RMA made housing development slow and expensive, but he was not sure the replacement legislation would fully cut through the red tape that remained.

There was also uncertainty over when the reforms would take effect, how projects would be assessed during the transition, and what could happen if there was a change of government, he said.

Whitburn said that uncertainty was adding to a property sector already facing subdued demand and a high level of unsold housing stock.

He expected the property market to take about 18 months to recover fully, meaning the construction downturn could continue despite having probably passed its lowest point.

Wellington property investor and development project manager Peter Ambrose was more optimistic about the scope for reform to unlock housing.

He said the proposed system appeared to give property owners more flexibility and could make it easier to convert older buildings into housing.

Ambrose wanted to demolish an old building and replace it with seven or eight one-bedroom apartments, but said requirements under the existing system made that difficult.

“The reforms are more commonsense, and they give more control to the property owner,” he said.

“But there are still issues around infrastructure, particularly water, and council contributions won’t change, so the costs involved won’t be remedied.”