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The Chairman introduced Joella Brown and
Xan Harding and particularly thanked them for their hard work, voluntary time
and commitment during this project and stressed the importance of working
together in a collaborative way going forward to progress the TANK Plan
Change.
·
Joella Brown spoke of her involvement as a
mana whenua representative, responsible for developing, amongst other things,
the Cultural Values Alignment with TANK draft plan report, input into the
Social and Cultural Impacts Assessments with Dr Anthony Cole, organising the
Community Reference Group meetings and generally providing in house advice
specifically around tikanga and matauranga Māori. She highlighted the very good relationships developed
and her interest in the plan’s implementation.
·
Xan Harding represents the Hawke’s Bay
Wine industry. Xan felt that the draft Plan is quite revolutionary in
terms of where key Māori
values, views and concepts have been incorporated. He asked the RPC to
put aside their differences and to do their best with the TANK Plan Change,
noting that a lot of good has come from the process and explained that
without the TANK plan progress could not come about in the catchments.
He thanked every person involved for their hard work and input.
Nicky
Kirikiri arrived at 9.11am
James Palmer presented the proposed draft Plan Change,
highlighting the significant complexities around this project, the
collaborative stakeholder group and the six year journey so far.
Discussions traversed:
·
The Draft TANK Plan change is a result of
numerous meetings, presentations, a multitude of scientific, cultural,
economic and social reports and an extraordinary depth of engagement to
ensure a robust and community led process for understanding the issues and
developing solutions facing the freshwater resources and the people in the
TANK catchment.
·
Freshwater is the single largest focus of
regional councils nationally, and is the epicentre of the Council’s
work.
·
Cumulative effects of human interactions with
the environment and the diffuse impacts of activities are not easily and
readily identified and controlled, and meeting the National Policy Statement
for Freshwater Management requirements is particularly complex and
challenging.
·
RMA decision making has profoundly changed and
is symbolised through the RPC, the expression of Article 2 of the Treaty of
Waitangi and the devolved responsibilities from the Crown to this Council to
work in partnership with the Treaty entities in a new and different way.
·
Credit and acknowledgment was given to members
of the TANK group, supported by significant effort of HBRC staff.
·
This Plan Change is all about community
ownership and has a high level of agreement. The RPC will be making
decisions around those issues where consensus has not been reached by the
TANK Group, further reports will be prepared for the RPC to assist them
·
Hope to proceed through to formal notification
and implementation of the Plan within the next few months.
Mary-Anne
Baker thanked everyone involved with the TANK project, highlighting the
complexities of the project and explaining some issues where consensus was
not achieved. Further discussions traversed:
·
Staff are seeking the Committee’s
receipt of the draft Plan Change to progress through the stages working
toward public notification in early 2019
·
Workshops are intended to provide overview,
contextual information and opportunity for discussion on the issues and
proposed provisions. It was suggested that they be recorded to enable
wider community to hear the information if they are interested.
·
A request was made to defer the decision
making to enable tangata whenua time to discuss with their respective treaty
settlement entities, and to receive the report in principle only, however it
was explained that the recommendations are deliberate in terms of narrowing
the scope of the committee’s deliberations from here. The sole
decisions today are to receive the draft and provide direction to staff.
·
Regarding the issues of non-consensus, there
is no intention to undermine the processed of the TANK Group, but to ensure
understanding of the plan change and make informed decisions.
·
The Committee was reminded of its commitment
of an earlier resolution, being “The Regional Planning Committee has
agreed to have particular regard to any TANK consensus outcome, if one
emerges, and the Regional Council has given a good faith undertaking to
implement the recommendations of the TANK Group. Any recommendations must
also be consistent with the following higher level documents like the
Resource Management Act, The National Policy Statement, National
Environmental Standards and the Regional Policy Statement”.
·
It was agreed by the Committee that the workshop
sessions will be recorded and available for public to view.
Tania Hopmans arrived at
9:53am
·
Reservations were expressed about limiting the
further information the Committee may wish to request and the desire to not
prevent the committee looking at issues other than those where consensus was
not reached by the TANK stakeholder group.
·
Preference for staff is to have the Committee
formally commission the work outlined in the recommendations, however the
work will continue either way as it is required under Statute. From a staff
perspective it is also useful to know what the process is for requesting
further information or a report as some reports can consume an enormous
amount of time to respond to.
·
It was agreed that any request for further
information and/or reports is to be brought forward through the Chair or
Co-Chair to the Chief Executive to be discussed and then accepted or
rejected. Any further information supplied will be provided to all members of
the RPC.
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