Govt warns councils against ‘picking extremes’ in climate decisions

Councils are being warned they risk lawsuits by requiring developers to design and build to overly stringent climate warming models.

This week, Newsroom reported Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track consent for a surf park and data centre development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet tough new climate adaptation requirements

Auckland’s new Stormwater Code of Practice requires projects to be designed and built in readiness for 3.8°C of climate warming over the next 100 years – a regional projection that is far higher than United Nations global modelling.

As well as Auckland, Newsroom has learned nine regional councils and eight district councils have commissioned Niwa to prepare regional climate projections in the past few years. Some of those, like Auckland, are working those temperatures into their decision-making.

Simon Court is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, which makes him a member of the Government executive.

He is criticising councils like Auckland for insisting landowners and developers design for an “extreme” 3.8°C temperature rise.

“When councils go getting involved and start picking extreme values, it has massive impacts on flood risk projections and it skews the perceived viability,” he says.

“The council’s job should be to advise landowners of the risk so they can decide how to design and build their way out of it. If the investors and their private insurers are comfortable with a project, there’s no reason for the councils to have further involvement.”

That sentiment (though not the solution) is echoed by Canterbury University’s Professor Dave Frame, who was a lead author on the Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Under the Resource Management Act, local authorities are required to have particular regard to climate change. They have a duty to avoid, remedy or mitigate adverse effects of climate change; everyone who carries out an activity or development under the Act must do the same.

Niwa provided councils with two modelling ranges – the internationally-accepted representative
concentration pathways 4.5 and 8.5. The RCP 8.5 model is a worst case scenario – and it is that 3.8 temperature projection that Auckland Council has chosen to accept.

Frame says that decision undermines its credibility, puts the council at risk of legal challenge, and could impose added costs on developers and ultimately, the community.

If developers are required to build to standards that anticipate more frequent, more severe flooding and fires and other events, then they will have to spend more. And that cost will be passed on to the purchasers and tenants of new homes and businesses.

“If they build in a safety margin that’s actually contingent on a scenario that nobody really believes, then it’s bad policy practice. And I also think it opens the door to legal challenge.”

But Ian Dobson, Auckland Council’s manager of resource consents for the north-west, disagrees. He doesn’t accept that all proposed developments that fail to allow for flooding or other impacts associated with 3.8°C of warming can or will be turned down.

“Not necessarily,” he replies. “All developments within flood hazard areas that require a resource consent are required to undertake a hazards risk assessment. The risk assessment needs to take into account the impacts of climate change over at least a 100-year period.

“A 3.8°C climate change scenario will increase the hazard risk on a site, however in some cases this may have small implications, while in others it will be more significant. It will depend on a number of factors, including the site’s location within the surrounding topography, catchment and pattern of development.”

It is not uncommon for the council to request a flood risk assessment, as part of the assessment of a resource consent.

“Generally, when an issue is raised by the council during the consenting process related to a hazard, such as flooding risk, the applicant will then look at options for mitigating that hazard. If they can show the council they have put an appropriate mitigation in place, the application can move forward.”

Other councils are incorporating Niwa’s projections into their policies and decision-making in different ways. For instance, if the surf park and data centre were to be built 50km further north in the Kaipara district, the worst-case climate warming projection is 3.5°C.

Council spokesperson Gillian Bruce says Kaipara is working with its communities and with the Northland Regional Council to enable a transition to appropriate land use and infrastructure.

The council seeks the expertise of suitably qualified and experienced engineers to mitigate the effects of natural hazards such as flood events when considering resource consents and building consents – and their recommendations may take into account aspects of climate change.

In Tasman District, where mean annual temperatures are projected to rise up to 3.0°C, spokesperson Tim O’Connell says its modelling is nearly 10 years old and the council is revisiting that as new information and updates come to light. “We have done some work with sea level rise as opposed to specific temperatures,” he adds. “This has seen us review or in some cases take certain areas out of acceptable zones for housing but these are not temperature driven.”

Adrian ‘Ace’ Buchan, the Australian pro surfer who is director of surf and sustainability for Aventuur, says the company is already responding to the council’s feedback and to the consenting panel, as part of the fast-track process.

“The flood modelling assessment is based on the standard set out in the Auckland Council Code of Practice,” he says. “The design of the data centre already incorporates best practice climate change and flood risk assessment, protecting for risk beyond the standard recommendation.”

Buchan, a longtime environmental advocate, is the chair of Surfing Australia and a founding board member of Surfers for Climate. He emphasises Aventuur’s commitment to delivering net positive environmental outcomes at the Auckland surf park.

“We believe it’s our responsibility to display leadership and innovation and have a positive impact on the planet and in our local communities. This is something shared by JK and our New Zealand partners,” Buchan says.

“Surf parks won’t replace what the ocean means to me but I believe they have a unique and important role to play not only in creating exceptional surfing experiences and communities but as places that are genuine social assets and examples of sustainable development.”