My Land Campaign

The case against SMA rules

We support recording sites and areas of significant Māori interest (SASMs, or SMAs). The Māori heritage in the Hutt is rich and vibrant. The valley is crisscrossed with Māori pre- and post-colonial habitation and activity.   

We steadfastly oppose the rules associated with SMAs that require owners of private land on these sites or areas to get resource consent conditions and permission from Māori interests before working on land or buildings. 

We prefer to call this concept ‘SMAs’ in honour of Hutt Council’s previous sneaky attempt to make private landowners pay for the ideological agenda of its staff.  

 

For more detail on the rules, go to:  https://eplan.huttcity.govt.nz/review/rules/0/94/0/0/0/46 and Section 32 Evaluation Report

What the rules mean

For the first time in New Zealand, Māori values will be given statutory rights and priority over the management of private land.

 

The Council has followed advice from Māori representatives on areas and sites significant to them and designated commercial and residential property in the region as Category 2 priority.

 

Category 1 are very important sites, like urupa. Fortunately, none of these are privately owned.

 

Category 2 are general areas where Māori hunted, fished, and grew crops, and carried out everyday activities. Unfortunately, about 250 commercial and about 500 residential properties fall into these areas in Petone, Korokoro and Eastbourne.

 

The Council has issued rules about your property in the District Plan, effective immediately. Resource consent is now required to:

• build new buildings or structures over 200m²; and

• make additions and alterations to existing buildings and structures exceeding 200m² if the property is zoned commercial or industrial.

 

The Council’s processing of resource consents for properties in SASMs are likely to be heavily weighted toward protection of Māori sites and values and promoting tangata whenua engagement and input. While the rules stop short of saying that consent conditions proposed by tangata whenua must be adopted, anyone applying for a consent that fails to comply does so at their own risk.

 

The Council states that protection of these sites is a matter of national importance that they must recognise and give effect to under the RMA. While this is true as a general statement of principle, the RMA in no way requires the Council to implement the rules they have adopted in the plan. These rules are a Council decision and the buck stops with them.

Property ownership

A fundamental tenet of our society is the right to hold and enjoy your property. Any limits to these rights are democratically set and kept at the minimum required for society to function. 

Property rights can only be limited democratically, and with compensation. 

This rule assigns special rights and control over private property to unspecified special interests. They are not democratically elected nor limited in their control.  There is no consultation or compensation. 

Māori control today is not warranted by generalised history

Most of the private land zoned by the Council as SMAs is deemed ‘Category 2’ – meaning Maori historically grew crops on the land or nearby, or hunted whio ducks, fished, or walked in the vicinity. These are not sites where Māori had dwellings. They are areas where they explored, hunted or hung out. There is very low likelihood of remains, objects, or other traces of people. The physical and spiritual connection to the area is therefore generalised, not specific. 

Yet the rule is very specific to privately owned parcels of land, with the rules treating each piece of land as if Māori had not only spent considerable time there, but at the time had a very significant relationship with every inch of land. We do not and cannot know that. The specificity of the rule to land and development, and the costs, are disproportionate to the generalised Māori history of the area.  

The SMA rules on private land are NOT required by the Resource Management Act (RMA)

The Council has willfully and deliberately misinterpreted the RMA to mean not only that areas of significance to Māori are identified and recorded, but that valuing and honouring this significance means giving Māori values priority over private land in the vicinity. The Act does not expect this outcome. It is the Hutt City Council that has chosen to value claims of generalised significance to Māori over the rights and costs on private owners. 

We demand that the Council identify and record SMAs and notify Hutt residents about them. We demand that the Council honours these areas with appropriate signage, commemoration events and on-going education. 

We demand that the Council DOES NOT use this as an excuse to weaken private property rights.

The RMA is about to be replaced

The Council has cited the RMA as the key legislation requiring these SMA rules, even though that legislation is being currently rewritten – with the contentious rules pertaining to SMAs likely to be significantly altered.  

This makes the Councl’s SMA rules a dead duck - a statutory orphan, without legal backing.  

Council sneakiness

Hutt City Council included none of these rules in the original draft District Plan it issued for consultation last year. As a result, it received no feedback. It has inserted this major change, the first race-based control of resource consenting, at the last stage for public consultation. 

 

The Council sent a letter to households in significant Maori areas, but deliberately obscured what it was about, and did not clarify the impact. 

The Council knows the RMA is being rewritten, so it is trying to sneak in SMA rules before the Act behind them is replaced. 

Council has not calculated costs

The Council claims that the benefits of the SMA rules outweigh the costs to private landowners. 

Despicably, the Council has made no attempt to calculate or describe the benefits of letting Māori values prevent or limit improvement of private land in areas of significance to Māori. 

It has also made no attempt to weigh the costs to private landowners, and the community. Without any evidence, it dismisses the costs of landowners as merely “opportunity costs”. This diminishes very real and instant impacts on the value of land covered by the new limitations. People will be less likely to buy property that they cannot improve without Māori consent. 

It also misrepresents the likelihood of those opportunity costs: almost all properties are improved at some time. They are not choices. There is a 100% chance that improvements requiring prioritization of Māori values or consent will happen in the future of affected properties. They will occur in response to maintenance needs, and changes in technology, lifestyles and planning rules. 
 

The rules invite backroom deals and legal battles

Because these rules give new, considerable powers over private property to Māori values and their representatives, they may accentuate community disputes and underhanded tactics used by developers.

It is not unreasonable to worry that property developers and landowners may aggressively use these rules for their own gain and at the detriment of opponents, either by lobbying those Māori representatives with the power to influence consents, or even by financially incentivising them.

These rules therefore have the potential to cause costly and disharmonious legal disputes between property developers, neighbours, and community groups. The Council may also be dragged into these disputes, at the cost of the ratepayer. 
The Council claims that the benefits of the SMA rules outweigh the costs to private landowners. 

Despicably, the Council has made no attempt to calculate or describe the benefits of letting Māori values prevent or limit improvement of private land in areas of significance to Māori. 

It has also made no attempt to weigh the costs to private landowners, and the community. Without any evidence, it dismisses the costs of landowners as merely “opportunity costs”. This diminishes very real and instant impacts on the value of land covered by the new limitations. People will be less likely to buy property that they cannot improve without Māori consent. 

It also misrepresents the likelihood of those opportunity costs: almost all properties are improved at some time. They are not choices. There is a 100% chance that improvements requiring prioritization of Māori values or consent will happen in the future of affected properties. They will occur in response to maintenance needs, and changes in technology, lifestyles and planning rules. 

The Council is inciting community conflict

Introducing Maori values to consenting processes for private land is willful endangerment of peace and harmony in the community. 

It is a change of unprecedented proportions and impact – an anathema to our society’s values and unity. 

While many Māori quite reasonably want to protect sites of major significance to them, especially where they are on public land, there is no evidence that Māori expect to control private property in general areas where their ancestors historically settled. 

Very few landowners affected by these rules will be happy to allow unknown, uncertain Māori interests and values to control their property development. 
All other landowners will be worried about future discoveries or claims about land they now own.