The National Party says it will further streamline the sometimes controversial Resource Management Act if it wins the election on November 26.
The main change would be introducing a six-month statutory time limit on the consenting of medium-sized projects.
Environment Minister Nick Smith said it was unacceptable many of the 1800 notified consents covering new factories, commercial buildings, subdivisions and regional infrastructure took longer than a year to resolve.
"These delays cost jobs, impose significant holding costs and cause frustration for all concerned. It is nonsensical that projects take longer to consent than they actually take to build."
Dr Smith and Prime Minister John Key announced the policy yesterday at the site of a $15 million new four-level building by Major Property Tauranga Ltd that took nearly two years to get a resource consent. The project was now going ahead with the first tower cranes in Tauranga in five years.
Dr Smith said his concern was not the final decisions from the RMA but the time it took for a decision to be made.
"We can't have bureaucratic processes holding up these sorts of developments when we have the building industry holding out for more work."
The next phase of reforms would also address problems identified from the Christchurch earthquakes over natural hazard management, he said.
It was unsatisfactory that new subdivisions were approved in Christchurch without any consideration of known liquefaction risks. A new requirement would be for councils to consider natural hazard risks like earthquakes, he said.
Mr Key said the latest reforms came on top of the first phase which reduced costs, uncertainties and delays for those building large national infrastructure and small non-notified consents.
National would also introduce changes to streamline the multiple planning of the RMA, Land Transport Management Act and the Local Government Act.
"We want to build on the work from the technical advisory groups on urban design so we do the planning only once and then get on with the work," Mr Key said.
Labour environment spokesman Charles Chauvel said Dr Smith's dream was likely to become an environmental nightmare.
Fast tracking so-called medium-sized projects sounded appealing but the announcement was likely to mean increased costs, more wrong decisions and less opportunity for people to have their say about development in their neighbourhoods.
The Green Party had similar concerns, but RMA spokesman Dave Clendon said it supported Government plans to give more power to local authorities to say no to developments that had unacceptable earthquake risk.
