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Resource Management Act 1991

Standards, policy statements, and plans - National direction - National environmental standards

43D: Relationship between national environmental standards and designations

You could also call this:

“How national environmental rules work with special area plans”

When a national environmental standard is made, you need to know how it works with something called a designation. If a designation already exists when the standard is made, the designation is more important until it lapses or is altered under section 181. If the designation is altered, the standard applies to the new conditions, but not the old ones. You should understand that a designation is like a plan for a specific area or activity.

If a designation requires an outline plan and no plan has been completed under section 176A when the standard is made, the standard is more important. A national environmental standard that already exists is more important than a new designation. There are some cases where you do not have to follow a national environmental standard, like if you were already doing something lawfully under a designation that has lapsed.

In these cases, you can keep doing what you were doing if it is the same or similar to what you were doing before the designation lapsed, and the standard was made after the designation. Work that is under a designation does not have to follow a national environmental standard if the work was made, then the standard was made, and then the designation was applied to the work. The term “conditions” in this section includes things like the physical boundaries of a designation.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM233323.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Conservation Environment and resources > Town planning
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43C: Relationship between national environmental standards and water conservation orders, or

"How national environmental standards and water conservation orders work together to protect New Zealand's water"

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43E: Relationship between national environmental standards and bylaws, or

"What happens when local bylaws are stricter or weaker than national environmental rules"

Part 5 Standards, policy statements, and plans
National direction: National environmental standards

43DRelationship between national environmental standards and designations

  1. A designation that exists when a national environmental standard is made prevails over the standard until the earlier of the following:

  2. the designation lapses:
    1. the designation is altered under section 181 by the alteration of conditions in it to which the standard is relevant.

      1. If the conditions of a designation are altered as described in subsection (1)(b), the standard—

      2. applies to the altered conditions; and
        1. does not apply to the unaltered conditions.

          1. A national environmental standard prevails over a designation that requires an outline plan if, when the standard is made,—

          2. the designation exists; and
            1. no outline plan for the designation has completed the process described in section 176A.

              1. A national environmental standard that exists when a designation is made prevails over the designation.

              2. A use is not required to comply with a national environmental standard if—

              3. the use was lawfully established by way of a designation that has lapsed; and
                1. the effects of the use, in character, intensity, and scale, are the same as or similar to those that existed before the designation lapsed; and
                  1. the standard is made—
                    1. after the designation was made; and
                      1. before or after it lapses.

                      2. Work under a designation is not required to comply with a national environmental standard if the work has come under the designation through the following sequence of events:

                      3. the work is made; and
                        1. the standard is made; and
                          1. the designation is applied to the work.

                            1. In this section, conditions includes a condition about the physical boundaries of a designation.

                            Notes
                            • Section 43D: replaced, on , by section 29 of the Resource Management Amendment Act 2005 (2005 No 87).