Who do I consult?

A common area of confusion is the difference between people ‘interested’ in your application or proposed activity, and those who are ‘affected’.

‘Affected persons’ are determined by the council as they will experience adverse effects from your proposal that are at least “minor” and are affected in a way that is different from the general public. For example, your neighbour may be adversely affected by the shading from your proposed new building, or people close to your property may be adversely affected by noise from the proposed activity. When you have lodged your application, the council determines who may be an ‘affected person’ and can ask you to get their written approval. Your application will also be put on-hold by the council until they have received the written approval(s).

‘Interested persons or parties’ refers to a broader group than ‘affected persons’ and includes everyone who has an interest in an application, geographic area or issue. The council may suggest that you talk to ‘interested persons or parties’ before lodging your application, and who these people may be.

Who you should consult can depend on the type of proposal and the effects it could produce.

Statutory considerations also affect whether or not you should consider consulting some people. The RMA and regional and district plans specify that, in some cases, councils can only take into account certain matters when considering an application. These cases are where councils have restricted their control or limited their discretion in plans (referred to as ‘controlled activities’ and ‘restricted discretionary activities’ respectively).

The RMA also allows councils to choose not to consider the effects of activities that are otherwise permitted by their plans. In some cases, consultation may be more limited if your proposal has only limited effects beyond those of an activity that doesn’t require consent. 

Always think carefully about whether you should consult with tangata whenua to ensure there is due regard for their relationships with their resources and the environment, as this is a matter the council has to take into account in its decision-making.

Before you start any consultation, you need to consider:

• What kind of effects will your proposed activity create – visual effects, traffic, noise, dust?
• How far they will extend – to adjoining properties, to the whole neighbourhood, to a stream catchment?
• How big those effects are in the context of the environment – minor, moderate, significant?

Those you might consult include:

• owners, occupiers and users of adjacent and nearby land
• downstream water users
• users of the same groundwater resource
• occupiers of land who live downwind of a proposed discharge to air
• people or groups with a specific interest in the site or area (such as guardians of an estuary)
• tangata whenua (iwi, hapū, whānau)
• statutory, infrastructure and utility organisations (such as government departments, councils, and road or rail authorities).

Tangata whenua may have a stronger interest and concern than other parties over some aspects of your proposal. Issues of particular importance include, but are not limited to, any discharges to water bodies, activities in areas of cultural significance and importance, or activities that could affect natural resources such as pounamu (greenstone), flax or freshwater species like īnanga (whitebait).

Concerns may extend to spiritual, ancestral or historical realms, such as a deep affinity with particular mahinga kai (food-gathering) areas, urupā (burial grounds), or pae o te riri (battlefields). These interests may not be readily apparent to many applicants, or to visitors to a site.

The key is understanding the nature of the connection with a place or feature (this is often referred to as the cultural value), and understanding what impact your proposal might have on that place or feature, and therefore on that connection.

You may need to consult a number of tangata whenua groups. Much depends on the nature of your proposal, the strength of association of a group to the place or feature, whether the groups have different positions on environmental issues, and the organisational structure and decision-making processes in each group.

Sometimes tangata whenua groups do not agree about who has authority over or interest in a locality. In such cases, you should consider consulting with all the parties concerned.

Some groups you may consult include:

• kaitiaki – generally a person or group with a responsibility to safeguard an area, including fresh or marine water. Kaitiaki are likely to be mandated by an iwi, hapū or marae
• iwi – a tribe, often represented by a trust, rūnanga or iwi authority
• hapū – a sub-tribe or group of whānau (extended family groups)
• other groups – including marae, Māori land trustees, or committees established through a council.

Councils are required to keep a record of contact details for the iwi authorities who exercise kaitiakitanga within the region, as well as for any groups that represent hapū for the purposes of the RMA.