Staff say the changes have all but ignored the submissions of councils and they still expect the reforms, which have been outlined only generally in the document, to have limited benefits for people using the Resource Management Act (RMA), and not inconsiderable set-up costs for the council.
Council resource consent manager Alan Worthington stopped short of saying the Government had ignored the feedback it received on its discussion document.
He said the council could only form a firm opinion on the impacts of the proposed changes once it had seen the detail of the Resource Management Reform Bill, which is to be introduced by the end of the year.
He said the council made a submission on the discussion document earlier in the year, and was party to a joint submission from five Otago councils.
The comments the council made in those submissions were still relevant.
He said it still had major concerns about the costs of the changes to ratepayers and customers, a reduction in public participation, and serious doubts about whether the changes would achieve the intended outcomes.
He said the council was proactively preparing for the changes through the development of its second generation district plan and had already incorporated some of the proposed changes.
It was also starting a comprehensive engagement process with other territorial authorities and key stakeholders, including Manawhenua, around the plan's development.
The council was taking its lead on structuring the plan from Auckland, based on that being a likely direction of any template.
The council's biggest concern about the reforms was the unknown of what might be done with a suggested national template and the potential for nationally directed ''common content'', he said.
''We do have major concerns about any nationally imposed changes that might override locally agreed content, both in terms of the erosion of local decision-making and the significant costs to make the changes.''
The changes proposed were also expected to have limited benefits for those making applications for consents and be costly for councils.
Experience had shown, for example, that time was not so critical for simple applications (for example, to build a deck close to a boundary) that they would benefit from a 10-day fast-track consent requirement instead of the current maximum of 20 days.
Activities that were now controlled might have to be changed to a more restricted category because 10 days might not be enough time consider the proposal (for example, an application to build a new building in a precinct).
That would unlikely result in any meaningful benefits in time or cost to the applicant, Mr Worthington said.
It would also cost the council to change systems and practices, and there was potential for a fast track to make a simple consent be seen as more important than a more significant non-notified consent with a processing time of up to 20 days.
Exempting very minor breaches from resource consents, as suggested, would only stop the need for a very small number of resource consents, and in time the same question might be raised again once the new line in the sand became old.
Another new suggestion, changing to the presumption subdivision could be a permitted activity, would not have an immediate impact because the council's district plan required a resource consent.
He noted that as recently as June, the Government identified land banking as a significant issue, but had removed it from the RMA reform document, despite it potentially having been the option that could have had the greatest benefit for communities.
''It would be good to further explore this challenging problem,'' Mr Worthington said.
The council and public could have further input into the Resource Management Reform Bill during the select committee process.
