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Speaker 1: Nine after five. Now the government today replacing the dreaded

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Speaker 1: RIMA with two new laws due to be passed before

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Speaker 1: the next election. A Planning Act will focus on the

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Speaker 1: development and use of land, and the Natural Environment Act

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Speaker 1: will look at the use and protection of the environment.

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Speaker 1: Sounds about right. Minister for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop is

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Speaker 1: with me now, High Minister.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon.

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Speaker 1: In a nutshell, what are you changing.

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Speaker 2: We're going to make fewer plans, there will be less

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Speaker 2: need for resource consents. There will be greater standardization around

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Speaker 2: the country what's called permitted activities, So as long as

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Speaker 2: you meet the standards and you are using your own property,

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Speaker 2: you can go off and do it. So fewer plans,

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Speaker 2: fewer resource consents, much more standardization, a much simpler system,

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Speaker 2: and it will lead to less cost and more ability

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Speaker 2: to do with your own property what you would like

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Speaker 2: and make it easy to build the houses and infrastructure

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Speaker 2: and projects that ZE needs to get ahead.

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Speaker 1: So I own a three bedroom home on a five

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Speaker 1: hundred square meter section in a city in New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: Can I go three.

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Speaker 2: Floors depending on the zoning of the council. Yes, But

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Speaker 2: one of the things we'll be looking at is standardized zones.

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Speaker 2: So in New Zealand at the moment there are one

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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy five different types of zones around the country.

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Speaker 2: Canterbury alone has over two hundred different zones. It's an

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Speaker 2: absolute nightmare for builders and from fat for anyone to

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Speaker 2: work their way through. Japan, by the way, has just

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Speaker 2: thirteen different zones, thirteen different land zones in which you

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Speaker 2: can work out what you do. So we want to

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Speaker 2: radically simplify the number of zones and end up with

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Speaker 2: standardized zones around the country. So the key point will

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Speaker 2: be this rhyme. If you want to build a three

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Speaker 2: bedroom home up to a certain height limit in Lower Hut,

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Speaker 2: it will be the same in Lower Hut as it

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Speaker 2: will be in another part of the country because the

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Speaker 2: standardized zone.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the problem you run into always is with councils

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Speaker 1: is the special character areas, isn't it And they're different

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Speaker 1: in different places. But will you have a carve out

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Speaker 1: for areas where Wellington and Auckland and christ whatever might think,

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Speaker 1: oh these houses are pretty and we don't want people

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Speaker 1: to be able to build up nine stories here.

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Speaker 2: There will be a safety valve through the legislation for

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Speaker 2: some types of deviation from standardized zones. That is important.

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Speaker 2: There will be unique cases, but as a general principle,

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Speaker 2: there won't be the ability to do that. That is

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Speaker 2: precisely for example, why the eleven story green building which

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Speaker 2: was due to replace a gravel pit next to a

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Speaker 2: city rail link station in Auckland got turned down precisely

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Speaker 2: because of those that sort of behavior and we want

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Speaker 2: to stop that.

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Speaker 1: Minister, thanks very much of your time. That's the minister

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Speaker 1: in charge of ripping up the RMA and doing something different.

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Speaker 1: Chris Bishop.

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Speaker 2: For more from Heather Duplassy Allen Drive. Listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio