District Plan Review

We began reviewing the 2003 District Plan in earnest in 2018. In 2019 we developed a Draft District Plan and held public meetings throughout the district to gather feedback and to find out what communities felt were the critical issues in our district. The Draft District Plan covered many areas, including:

Providing for Sustainable Growth – We’ve monitored the availability of land and know we have some growth capacity in our urban areas and towns. We earmarked new areas for residential and industrial growth, for when it is needed.

Coastal Settlements and Rural Townships - Our coastal environment is special and has different land and resource use issues to other parts of the district. Provisions in the District Plan can help manage coastal settlement sizes and protect high natural character areas and landscapes.

Protecting our Land Resources - Our landscapes and natural environment are precious. We’ve identified new significant natural areas and (for the first time) outstanding natural landscapes and features, and provisions in the District Plan can help manage and protect them.

Recognising our Cultural Values and Heritage Areas - Our district has a proud history and it’s vital we recognise areas of significance to our tangata whenua, marae and our community. The district also has a number of important and prominent historic buildings and some notable trees that should be listed in our plan.

Protecting our Unique Landscape - Our district is made up of areas of naturally fertile land with excellent soils that can be used for a range of different productive purposes. We need to manage how we develop and use this land, possibly by introducing three new rural zones for our district.

The Proposed District Plan 

The community’s valuable feedback on the Draft District Plan helped us develop the Proposed District Plan. This document was publicly notified in May 2021, and public submissions were called for. Council received 123 submissions and 29 further submissions.

In 2022 we appointed a Hearings Panel and submitters were heard over seven different Hearing Streams based on topic groups. All information regarding the hearings can be found via the Hearings Portal. 

On 25 May 2023, the Council publicly notified the updated 'decisions' version of the Proposed District Plan. These public notices can be viewed here. The Hearings Panel's recommendations can be viewed here. The ‘decisions’ version of the Proposed District Plan can be viewed through our e-plan by selecting previous versions of the plan.

District Plan Operative in Part

After the release of the decisions version of the plan, 16 appeals were lodged with the Environment Court.   By 31 October 2024, the majority of appeals were resolved so the Council passed a resolution to make the District Plan 'operative in part'.