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Andrew Dickens: The jungle drums are starting to thrum for the fast-track regime · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The jungle drums are starting to thrum for the fast
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: track regime. Word on the street is that legal action
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: is coming for a number of the proposals currently before
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  Speaker 1: the committee. Meanwhile, there was a really fiery Auckland Council
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: meeting yesterday full of anger at residential fast track developers.
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  Speaker 1: One councillor caused the whole fast track thing an existential threat.
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  Speaker 1: Mayor Wade Brown has vowed to be a thorn in
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  Speaker 1: the side of subdivisions looking to circumvent the council. And
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  Speaker 1: considering telling FastTrack developers and the people who will buy
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: those places that it will not provide or fund basic
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  Speaker 1: services to them. So the problem is, I reckon, that
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  Speaker 1: the developers are using the new system to gazump planning rules.
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  Speaker 1: So FastTrack was designed to speed up the process of
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  Speaker 1: getting consents, but not to supplant the regulations currently in place.
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  Speaker 1: And there's been a stampede, particularly by housing developers, who
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  Speaker 1: want quick consents, but they also want more latitude for
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  Speaker 1: their plans. Now, a prime example of that is the
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: redevelopment of the Devonport Township. The developers there have proposed
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: a series of eight-storey buildings, but the unitary plan currently
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  Speaker 1: only allows four, and that's got locals concerned that the
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  Speaker 1: main road will be overwhelmed. It's very picturesque, and they'll
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  Speaker 1: have absolutely no say in there. The fast track is
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  Speaker 1: there to make the gaining of consents faster, but not
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  Speaker 1: to fundamentally change the plan that's currently in place. You
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  Speaker 1: want a success story? The ports of Tauranga. whose plan
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  Speaker 1: was stuck in bureaucratic limbo for seven years. Now, in
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  Speaker 1: a matter of months, the plan has been improved. But
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  Speaker 1: it's still a plan that adheres to all the planning
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  Speaker 1: regulations in place. They didn't actually steal a march. They
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  Speaker 1: didn't take the mickey. Anyway, so expect some expensive legal
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: action as locals and, of course, councils put the spanner
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  Speaker 1: in the works of the developers who are trying to
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  Speaker 1: push the boundaries for a quick buck. For more from
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News Talk
• 1:47
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