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RMA Enforcement Manual

The purpose of the RMA Enforcement Manual is to help improve RMA enforcement practice by:

The RMA Enforcement Manual is laid out in seven guidance notes. Supporting information includes a glossary of enforcement terms, example forms, checklists, and a separate summary of the case law referred to within the guidance notes.

Guidance notes

Supporting information

Investigation of incidents

Terms and definitions, forms and checklists

Application for a declaration

Case law summaries

Mandatory directives:
Abatement notices, enforcement orders and water shortage directions

 

Imposing penalties:
Environmental infringement notices
and prosecutions

 

Managing noise through enforcement

 

Emergency powers

 

Enforcing plans and consents, Existing use rights, Section 17, Costs, Service of documents and Environment Court practice notes

 

 

Using the RMA enforcement manual

This manual provides general best practice information on RMA enforcement. When selecting an enforcement mechanism, follow the procedures and guidelines specific to your local authority. Particularly important are the priorities your local authority sets for compliance and enforcement, and any delegations used to manage risk on enforcement decision-making.

There are different ways you can integrate this manual with your Council's procedures and guidelines. For example, you might:

 

Disclaimer

The Enforcement Manual is not a do-it-yourself guide to enforcement. The authors - the Ministry for the Environment and Local Government New Zealand (the original producer of this manual) - recommend that local authorities take legal advice, when appropriate, when enforcement mechanisms under the Resource Management Act are used.

The manual is intended to provide accurate and adequate information pertaining to the subject matters in the manual, within the limitations of its size. The manual has been written, edited and published, and is made available to all persons and entities, strictly on the basis that its authors, the Ministry for the Environment and Local Government New Zealand, fully exclude any liability in any way to any person or entity for damages in respect of or arising out of any reliance in part or full, by such person or entity or by any other person or entity, upon any of the contents of the manual for any purpose.

Acknowledgments

The New Zealand Ministry for the Environment would like to thank Local Government New Zealand for providing the rights to, and base material from, the original Resource Management Enforcement Manual, on which this manual is based.

The original Resource Management Enforcement Manual was produced by Local Government New Zealand and written by Karenza de Silva. Other people involved in the document were:

The 2005 update of the original manual was undertaken by:

In 2006 the Ministry held a series of seminars around New Zealand based on the 2005 update. Following reflections on the seminars and the introduction of the Evidence Act 2006, further amendments were made to improve the way readers could find relevant content, to place RMA enforcement in context, and to establish a platform for developing best practice resources in this field. The changes introduced through the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Act 2009 have also been incorporated. The 2009 update was undertaken by:

Published October 2009.