North Shore City Council v Auckland Regional Council

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North Shore City Council v Auckland Regional Council'
Coat of arms of New Zealand.svg
Court Environment Court of New Zealand
Full case nameNorth Shore City Council v Auckland Regional Council
Decided 1 October 1996
Citation(s) [1997] NZRMA 59
Transcript(s) Judgment
Case history
Prior action(s) [1995] NZRMA 424 (PT)
Subsequent action(s) [1995] 3 NZLR 18 (CA)
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting Sheppard J, P A Catchpole and I G C Kerr
Keywords
Resource Management, Regional Policy Statement, Metropolitan Urban Limit

North Shore City Council v Auckland Regional Council was a case in the Environment Court of New Zealand concerning the proper interpretation of section five of the Resource Management Act 1991 by planning bodies.

Environment Court of New Zealand

The Environment Court of New Zealand is a specialist court for plans, resource consents and environmental issues. It mainly deals with issues arising under the Resource Management Act, meaning that it covers a wide range of potential future effects of planning applications, which can include such areas as traffic congestion, noise/pollution emissions and social and commercial consequences, rather than just the 'ecological' aspects that could be implied by the 'environmental' term.

Resource Management Act 1991 New Zealand law promoting sustainable management of natural and physical resources

The Resource Management Act (RMA) passed in 1991 in New Zealand is a significant, and at times, controversial Act of Parliament. The RMA promotes the sustainable management of natural and physical resources such as land, air and water. New Zealand's Ministry for the Environment describes the RMA as New Zealand's principal legislation for environmental management.

Contents

Background

The Auckland Regional Council had publicly notified its proposed regional policy statement in early 1994 which would have restricted urban development with a line of metropolitan urban limits.

Auckland Regional Council

The Auckland Regional Council (ARC) was the regional council of the Auckland Region. Its predecessor the Auckland Regional Authority (ARA) was formed in 1963 and became the ARC in 1989. The ARC was subsumed into the Auckland Council on 1 November 2010.

The appellants, the North Shore City Council and the owners of land in the area around Long Bay and Okura River sought to modify the metropolitan urban limits so that an area of some 700 hectares in the area would be zoned within the urban limit [1]

Long Bay, New Zealand suburb of North Shore in northern New Zealand

Long Bay is a suburb of North Shore, part of the Auckland metropolitan area in northern New Zealand. The population was 885 in the 2013 census, an increase of 114 from 2006.

The Okura River is a river in the north of the Auckland Region in the North Island of New Zealand. The river rises in the low hills to the south of Silverdale and flows into Karepiro Bay on the Hauraki Gulf. The river is extremely tidal with only a narrow channel being navigable by small craft at low tide.The area is popular for horse riding, riders wait till low tide and then ford the boating channel to ride the estuary and beaches on the northern side.

Judgment

The Environment Court allowed the appeals in part, "to the extent that the regional council is directed to alter the line of metropolitan urban limits in the proposed regional policy statement so that instead of following Glenvar Road, the line follows the watershed or catchment boundary between the Long Bay and Okura catchments." [2]

In coming to this determination the Court had decided that,

"We have concluded that urbanisation of the part of the subject land in the Okura catchment would necessarily have significant adverse effects on the environment of the Okura Estuary, and that the estuary, its high quality waters and ecosystem, possesses life supporting capacity which deserve to be safeguarded. However we have not accepted that there would necessarily be significant adverse effects of urbanisation on the environment of the Long Bay coast, or on the marine life of the marine reserves." [3]

In coming to its decision the Court had regard to section 5 of the Resource Management Act which states the Act's purpose as promoting sustainable management. The Court held:

"The method of applying s 5 then involves an overall broad judgment of whether a proposal would promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. That recognises that the [RMA] has a single purpose. Such a judgment allows for comparison of conflicting considerations and the scale or degree of them, and their relative significance or proportion in the final outcome." [4]

Significance

The case established the "overall board judgment" approach to interpretation of section 5 of the Resource Management Act. [5]

In the 2014 decision, Environmental Defence Society v New Zealand King Salmon the Supreme Court declined to follow the "overall broad judgment" approach.

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<i>Environmental Defence Society Inc v New Zealand King Salmon Co Ltd</i>

Environmental Defence Society v New Zealand King Salmon was a case in the Supreme Court of New Zealand concerning the proper interpretation of the Resource Management Act 1991 by planning bodies.

References

  1. North Shore City Council v Auckland Regional Council [1997] NZRMA 59 at 63.
  2. At 96.
  3. At 92.
  4. At 94.
  5. Warnock, Ceri; Baker-Galloway, Maree (2015). Focus on Resource Management Law. Wellington: LexisNexis NZ Ltd. p. 67. ISBN   978-1-927248-74-4.