Plain language law

New Zealand law explained for everyone

Local Government Act 2002

Planning, decision-making, and accountability - Planning and decision-making - Decision-making

80: Identification of inconsistent decisions

You could also call this:

“Explaining when councils make choices that don't match their plans”

When you make a decision that doesn’t match what your local council has said it would do, the council has to explain why. This happens if the decision is very different from a policy or plan the council has, or if it will lead to something very different from what the council planned.

If this happens, the council needs to clearly say:

  1. How the decision is different from their policy or plan
  2. Why they’re making a decision that’s different
  3. If they plan to change their policy or plan because of this decision

This rule doesn’t change any other rules in this law or other laws. It’s just an extra step to help people understand when and why the council does something different from what they said they would do.

This text is automatically generated. It might be out of date or be missing some parts. Find out more about how we do this.

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM172324.

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Part 6 Planning, decision-making, and accountability
Planning and decision-making: Decision-making

80Identification of inconsistent decisions

  1. If a decision of a local authority is significantly inconsistent with, or is anticipated to have consequences that will be significantly inconsistent with, any policy adopted by the local authority or any plan required by this Act or any other enactment, the local authority must, when making the decision, clearly identify—

  2. the inconsistency; and
    1. the reasons for the inconsistency; and
      1. any intention of the local authority to amend the policy or plan to accommodate the decision.

        1. Subsection (1) does not derogate from any other provision of this Act or of any other enactment.