The purpose of the Waitaki Act is to require the allocation of water in the Waitaki catchment on a basis consistent with the Resource Management Act 1991.  In order to achieve this, the Waitaki Act required the preparation of the Waitaki Regional Plan, and while this was being prepared, deferred the consideration of resource consent applications relating to the take or divert of water within the Waitaki catchment.

The Waitaki Act directed that Environment Canterbury must not consider and decide the deferred applications until the Waitaki Regional Plan was operative.  In Environment Canterbury’s view the Waitaki Regional Plan became partly operative in October 2005, but was not fully operative until the resolution of the High Court proceedings on 3 July 2006.  Therefore, it could not begin to consider the deferred applications until 3 July 2006.

The Waitaki Act requires the deferred applications be considered and decided under the Waitaki Regional Plan.  In effect, once the Waitaki Regional Plan became operative, the processing of the deferred resource consent applications had to begin afresh as though they were applications made under the Waitaki Regional Plan.  This required a new start for each deferred applications on 3 July 2006.  This included the consideration of whether further information was required for applications complete (further information requests), whether additional resource consent applications should be sought, what order applications are to be decided in (priority order), whether application should be publicly notified, limited notified, or decided without notification. 

Given the new considerations under the Waitaki Regional Plan, many ‘deferred’ applications were incomplete on 3 July 2006.  Therefore, these applications were the subject of Environment Canterbury further information requests.  These requests were, in part, made in order to ensure each application contained sufficient information to be ‘publicly notifiable’. 

Given the requirement for a ‘fresh’ beginning, Commissioner Skelton determined that resource consent application decision priority order is legally determined by the date an application first became publicly notifiable under the Waitaki Act.  This resulted in a change in the priority order that existed prior to the applications being deferred.

The Waitaki Act will continue to be relevant to the consideration of the deferred applications until they are finally determined.  It provides that evidence presented to the Board may be considered at any hearing.  In addition, all provides that all relevant submissions previously lodged on the resource consent application must also be considered.  In the event that an appeal to the Environment Court is made and a hearing is required, the Court is directed to treat the hearing as a priority fixture.