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Resource Management Act 1991

Standards, policy statements, and plans - Miscellaneous matters - Plan must not allow activity that prevents protected customary rights

86: Power to acquire land

You could also call this:

“Councils can buy land to stop bad activities or help good ones that match their plan.”

When a regional council or territorial authority has an active plan, they can buy land in their area if they think it’s necessary or helpful. They can do this to stop activities that don’t follow the rules or to make it easier for activities that match what the plan wants to achieve.

The council or authority can only buy land if the owner agrees. They use a law called the Public Works Act 1981 to do this.

Even though the plan allows the council or authority to buy land, it doesn’t force them to do it. There are only a few exceptions to this rule, which you can find in sections 85(3A)(a)(ii), 185, and 198.

If the council or authority does buy your land for these reasons, you’ll get paid the same amount as if they bought it for a public project under the Public Works Act 1981.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM233844.

Topics:
Environment and resources > Town planning
Environment and resources > Land use
Government and voting > Local councils
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Part 5 Standards, policy statements, and plans
Miscellaneous matters: Plan must not allow activity that prevents protected customary rights

86Power to acquire land

  1. In addition to any power it may have to acquire land for any public work which it is authorised to undertake, a regional council or territorial authority may, while its plan is operative, acquire by agreement under the Public Works Act 1981 any land (including any interest in land) in its region or district, if, in accordance with the plan, the regional council or territorial authority considers it necessary or expedient to do so for any of the following purposes:

  2. terminating or preventing any non-complying or prohibited activity in relation to that land:
    1. facilitating activity in relation to that land that is in accordance with the objectives and policies of the plan.

      1. Except as provided in sections 85(3A)(a)(ii), 185, and 198, nothing in any plan shall impose on any regional council or territorial authority any obligation to acquire any land.

      2. Every person having any interest in land taken for any purpose authorised by subsection (1) shall be entitled to all compensation which that person would be entitled to if the land had been acquired for a public work under the Public Works Act 1981.

      Notes
      • Section 86(2): amended, on , by section 69 of the Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017 (2017 No 15).