CHANGES in Urban and Environmental Governance in Canterbury from 2010 to 2015: Comparing Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Analysis and Policy Observatory (APO) Ann Brower and Ike Kleynbos CHANGES in Urban and Environmental Governance in Canterbury from 2010 to 2015: comparing Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council This article compares the proximate but not parallel Background Between 2010 and 2012, Canterbury trajectories of Canterbury Regional Council’s (ECan) and the Regional Council and the Christchurch Christchurch City Council’s changing authority to manage City Council faced governance crises. The former was accused by Canterbury’s the urban and natural environment from 2010 to 2015. We Mayoral Forum of failing to produce a plan for resource use and of processing ask why the trajectories are so far from parallel, and speculate resource consents slowly. The latter as to why the central government interventions were so experienced an 18-month spate of earthquakes that left 80% of the buildings different. The apparent mismatch between the justifications in the central business district on the to- for the interventions and the interventions themselves reveals be-demolished list. In the February 2011 quake there were also 42 deaths in city important implications on the national and local levels. streets, and 133 deaths in city inspected buildings. Nationally, the mismatch speaks to the current debate over an In one case the government intervened overhaul of the Resource Management Act. Locally, it informs by suspending local elections indefinitely, replacing the councillors, suspending current discussions in Wellington, Nelson, Gisborne and some jurisdiction of the Environment Court and parts of national legislation elsewhere about amalgamating district and regional councils. in Canterbury, and changing rules for water conservation and use. In the other Ann Brower is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy at Lincoln University. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s from Yale. case, local elections and council remained Ike Kleynbos holds a Bachelor of Environmental Management and Planning degree from Lincoln intact, while emergency powers were University and is currently doing postgraduate studies at Lincoln. Policy Quarterly – Volume 11, Issue 3 – August 2015 – Page 41 Changes in Urban and Environmental Governance in Canterbury from 2010 to 2015: comparing Environment Canterbury and Christchurch City Council Figure 1: Freshwater Policy: 20 years of policy development and decisions Sustainable Sustainable Development Land Strategy: A New Management Programme Start for Freshwater RMA Strategy of Action Freshwater NPS 1991 1995 1996 1999 2002 2004 2008/9 2010 2011 2014 Environment 2010 National Agenda Freshwater for Land and New Draft “Decline in freshwater for sustainable a Sustainable Water Forum NPS Amendment quality a major Water management: Future/Programme and National environmental Action Plan of Action Framework problem” Courtesy of Dr Hugh Logan, used with permission granted to a new government department enjoy reasonable autonomy, with flexible the direct intervention of a territorial for five years. direction from central government. authority. One might expect the more drastic The Resource Management Act aims Perhaps more concerning, this lack of and long-lived central government to ‘promote the sustainable management central planning guidance unintentionally intervention in response to the more of natural and physical resources’ (section reverses the intended hierarchy of the drastic crisis. Canterbury defies such 5). The RMA’s governance structure RMA. Rather than planning within expectation. Though the justification for allows the government to provide central the intended hierarchy, communities intervention appeared stronger in the guidance to district and regional councils are instead forced through a bottom- earthquake, the less life-and-death crisis in the form of national policy statements up approach of case-by-case decision- received the more drastic intervention. (NPS) on resources such as freshwater, making with its attendant inefficiencies We explore this difference. We find biodiversity and the like. Regional and inequities (Brower, 2008, pp.57-8). that government interventions go well councils then use the NPS to establish Between 2010 and 2012 both ECan beyond who is at the top. The method regional goals (in a regional policy and the Christchurch City Council faced of choosing who is at the top (local statement); then district councils work governance crises deemed to be so pressing elections or government appointment) is within and implement both the national that the central government intervened. but a small part of the changes in natural and regional policy statements. This Thus, ‘normal circumstances’ described resource rules in Canterbury. We propose planning hierarchy establishes a system above started to change in April 2010 with that there might be broader motives, in which local authorities make decisions the passage of the Environment Canterbury with national implications, for the within central guidelines. (Temporary Commissioners and Improved changes in Canterbury governance, and However, these national policy Water Management) Act 2010 (ECan Act). for the differences observed. Those other statements have been slow to arrive (see They changed again in September 2010 and motives might be as simple as facilitating Figure 1). Thus, for freshwater and other March 2011 with passage of the first and irrigation approvals, or as far-reaching as resources the RMA planning hierarchy second earthquake acts. using Canterbury as a testing ground for has had little at the top (Oram, 2007; national changes to environmental laws. Memon and Gleeson, 1995). This lack of Environment Canterbury central direction has led local and regional Let us start with the regional council, Christchurch and Canterbury before 2010 authorities to facilitate strategic land use Environment Canterbury or ECan. Under normal circumstances in New policy through the Local Government Section 30 of the RMA authorises Ecan, Zealand the authority to manage water, Act 2002, as it offers broader strategic like all regional governments, to manage soil, geothermal resources, natural tools than the RMA (Swaffield, 2012). the water, air and coastal resources of hazards, pollution, costal management, Examples of this include the current the region. The ECan Act replaced the land use, subdivision and hazardous Greater Christchurch Urban Development ECan councillors with government- substances is devolved and delegated to Strategy, and Christchurch’s 2006 Central appointed commissioners, suspended district and regional councils by way of the City Revitalisation Strategy. They are regional elections, suspended jurisdiction Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). strategic attempts to create planning of the Environment Court over certain Those district and regional councils certainty within Christchurch through types of decisions, allowed the minister Page 42 – Policy Quarterly – Volume 11, Issue 3 – August 2015 to selectively suspend sections of regional policy statement and creating its Parliament to abdicate its authority, environmental law, and changed the rules natural resources regional plan.1 Different by delegating to the political executive for river protection (Brower, 2010). The teams were working on the different (minister for the environment) the statute set an expiry date, of 2013. In 2013 plans, creating potential for conflict. power ‘to make regulations suspending, Parliament amended the act to extend Creech argued that this highlighted amending, or overriding primary the expiry date to 2016 (Public Act 2013 ECan’s inability to create definitive and legislation’ (Joseph, 2007, p.503). New No. 6). In 2015 Cabinet proposed another durable regional policy. Zealand constitutional law scholar amendment, not an expiration. None Many have said that the Creech report Philip Joseph calls this type of clause of this applied to other regions; neither prompted the ECan Act. But Smith did ‘constitutionally objectionable where they was it quake-induced; nor did it happen not need special legislation to replace are used for general legislative purposes’ overnight. ECan councillors with commissioners; (Joseph, 2010, p.195). In 2009 the government commissioned his government held the power. There Section 52 then restricts Cantabrians’ a review of the RMA which suggested are several reasons the government access to the Environment Court. Under abolishing regional councils altogether might have gone to the trouble of special the ECan Act, Cantabrians can no (Gorman, 2009b). Amy Adams, now legislation to create powers it already longer appeal the substance of regional minister of justice, reminded then (and had. Perhaps it: 1) was not confident that government decisions about water now) minister for the environment Nick ECan had breached legislative thresholds; conservation orders (WCOs) and the Smith that the government held the power or 2) had other goals. Understanding the regional plan and policy statements. While to sack poorly performing regional and rest of the ECan Act sheds light on the all other of the ECan Act’s provisions were district councils, with solid evidence of that poor performance (ibid.). Smith then threatened to use these powers if ECan A resource management lawyer acting failed to speed up consents-processing. Governments had sacked councils before, for the Fish and Game councils of without special