An overarching document that will direct how natural resources such as water and land are managed throughout Otago for the next 10 years is about to start taking shape.
It is expected the Regional Policy Statement for Otago will take a minimum of three years to produce.
Developing the document will require the Otago Regional Council, the region's territorial authorities and iwi to collaborate.
This is because the regional plan ''drives and directs'' the content of district plans, which outline the use and development of land in each area.
Regional council chairman Stephen Woodhead said the process needed to be collaborative and it was the council's ''number one policy priority''.
''It will be a significant workload.''
A timeline had been developed with the first step, establishing a collaborative process with local authorities and iwi, to be completed by April.
The last step, making the decisions on the plan, was expected to be done in June 2015.
Regional council policy and resource director Fraser McRae said the plan was long overdue for review having come into force in 1998.
The first step was a significant one and staff were ensuring mayors, councillors and staff of the territorial authorities were consulted and their contributions were fed into the document.
One of the main factors to get agreement on was that the district plans would be the ''one-stop shop'' when it came to land-use regulations, he said.
The aim was to get the regional plan done as quickly as possible given most of the councils in the region had begun work on their district plans.
However, there needed to be a ''degree of caution'' so the process was done well and the council was not ''tripped up'', he said.
That could mean the plan being appealed to the Environment Court and ultimately being ''sent back'' for another attempt, he said.
Mr Woodhead said the regional plan had already been discussed at the Otago Mayoral Forum and the timetable would be presented to members at its next meeting. Council staff had also had meetings with city and district planning staff.
''I'm sure there will be bumps along the road,'' he said.
