Balancing urban development and environmental management

Issue

While urban development is essential for wellbeing, it must be strategically integrated and appropriately designed. Poorly considered development can cause significant environmental harm and greenhouse gas emissions, drive risks to homes and infrastructure from natural hazards and climate change, and alter the character of rural areas.

Causes

The primary causes include mismanagement of development, inappropriate design and location of infrastructure, and a lack of strategic integration between land use and infrastructure.

Why it matters

Mismanaged development threatens environmental resilience, has the potential to contaminate land and water bodies, and may impact Ngāi Tahu values. Inappropriate development can harm the economy, food production, and biodiversity, while a lack of strategic integration can result in inefficient and costly development. All these issues undermine the goal of achieving sustainable growth, balancing social, economic, and cultural benefits with environmental conservation.

The urban form has impacts on greenhouse gas emissions from land use, buildings, energy, waste and notably transport. Communities in Waitaha/Canterbury face high and extreme risks due to a variety of climate change hazards, particularly river flooding and reductions in community cohesion.

Our current goals

Our Regional Policy Statement includes some direction that must be implemented and other direction that should be implemented. We have included these in two categories below:

1. Things we must do

This is very strong policy direction that is required to be implemented:

  • Ensure land and natural resource use is sustainable by balancing development and growth with environmental conservation. This includes providing adequate capacity for housing and business land in areas of urban development to satisfy the anticipated demands of the region.
  • Safeguard highly productive land from inappropriate subdivision, use, and development.
  • Coordinate land use and infrastructure development to promote efficient and sustainable urban growth and well-functioning urban environments.
  • Respect and protect the cultural values and associations of Ngāi Tahu with their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu, and other taonga.

2. Things we should do

This policy direction is strongly encouraged:

  • Encourage high-quality urban design that enhances the character and function of urban areas.
  • Improve accessibility to a range of transport options including public and active modes of transport, services, and amenities within urban areas.

Should we change our goals?

When we consider changing goals, we need to keep in mind that other on-the-ground changes will be required to meet them. We also need to keep in mind that some of our must-do policy direction was necessary to meet the national legislation requirements of the time. Some new must-dos will be needed to meet more recent legislation.

Potential impacts of changing our policy direction

We have outlined some of the potential consequences that could result from changing our policy direction. These are high-level examples, just to illustrate that each change will have flow-on effects.

For example, achieving the goal of consolidated sustainable management and protection of highly productive land may mean that we need to reconsider how and where we allow urban development to occur. For instance, we may need to limit the expansion of urban areas to protect highly productive land and preserve it for future generations, or to prevent an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from unconsolidated growth. This could potentially mean higher density living in existing urban areas, which may change the character of some neighbourhoods.

We are using feedback we received in July and August to draft more detailed policy options, including detail about the consequences of change. You will get another opportunity to tell us what you think about those options in October this year.