Plans and other material supplied with a land use consent application shall be accurate and provide enough detail to enable any person to gain a reasonable understanding of the application. If you are unsure about the information required, you
should seek professional help. If you lodge an
application that is incomplete, it may not be accepted for
processing by the Council.
Assessment of Environmental Effects
(AEE)
The main document supporting your application will be the Assessment of Environmental Effects
(AEE).
The amount of detail provided in the AEE should correspond with the scale and nature of the anticipated effects. If an application does not include an adequate assessment of environmental effects or the information required by regulations, Council may reject the application within 5 working days of lodgement, with written reasons. Alternatively, the Council may put the application on hold under section 92 and request additional information and/or a specialist report (with the applicant's consent) if the proposal will have a significant environmental effects.
Generally, the larger or more complex the effects, the more detailed the AEE should be. Be careful that this document fairly and reasonably reflects what you want to do on your property or how the activity will operate. This document and any technical reports supporting the application will be used as a condition of consent (if consent is granted) and therefore can be used to control you or your operation.
Environment Court decisions of interest include Clevedon Protection Society v Manukau City Council and Body Corporate v Auckland City Council.
The AEE is an accurate and objective analysis of the effects of the proposed activity or structure on the environment. It should be remembered that the words 'effect' and 'environment' have definitions in the Resource Management Act 1991.
'Effect' includes:
any positive or adverse effect
any temporary or permanent effect
any past, present, or future effect
any cumulative effect which arises over time or in combination with other effects
any potential effect of high probability
any potential effect of low probability which has a high potential impact
'Environment' includes:
ecosystems and their constituent parts, including people and communities
all natural and physical resources
amenity values
the social, economic, aesthetic, and cultural conditions which affect the matters
above
The Environment Court in its decision Affco NZ Ltd. v Northland Abattoir Company Ltd has stated that
"consent authorities and would-be submitters should not themselves have to engage in detailed investigations to enable them to assess the effects. It is an applicant's responsibility' to provide an AEE". If an AEE is not supplied the application will be considered to be incomplete and will not be accepted for processing.
