Hearings

When is a hearing held?

After submissions have closed, it is determined whether a hearing may be necessary. If there are no submissions or if all submissions are in favour of the application, it may not be necessary to hold a hearing.

If a hearing is to be held, a hearing date is arranged, taking into account availability of rooms, staff, hearings commissioner, and other parties. The date for the hearing is then notified to both the applicants and submitters a minimum of 10 working days before the hearing. If one has been prepared, the reporting office’s report must be circulated at least five working days before the hearing.

The hearing is usually held no later than 25 working days after the closing date for submissions.

What happens before a hearing? 

Before a hearing, a planners report is prepared, including other expert reports from engineers, landscape architects etc. 

The planners report is sent to the applicant and submitters. The report may include recommendations, which the Independent Hearings Commissioner can refer to in making any decision. The commissioner is not bound to follow the recommendations but can use them as a guide. 

Council employs Independent Hearings Commissioners for all hearings. 

To view the current hearing agendas, follow the link below.

With the agreement of all parties, pre-hearing and mediation meetings can be held to clarify matters or issues, or to facilitate resolution of an issue.

Pre-hearing meetings can be held at any time before a hearing, and even before an application for resource consent is lodged.  Council may hold a pre-hearing meeting at the request of a submitter or the applicant. Attendance at pre-hearing meetings can also be required, with the prior agreement of the applicant. If attendance at a pre-hearing meeting is required, and the person does not attend and does not have a reasonable excuse, Council can decline to process the application or submission (whichever applies).

Submitters who do not wish to be heard 

Any application which receives submissions and there has been no request to be heard will be decided by the Independent Hearings Commissioner outside of the hearings process. 

The hearing decision

Once the hearing has closed, the hearings commissioner makes a decision within 15 working days and forwards the decision to Council.

The decision is sent to the agent and/or applicant. Further processing costs may be incurred during processing and are charged after a decision is made on the application.

Follow the link below for details of our Schedule of Fees and Charges.

Fees and Charges

Joint hearings and decision making

On occasion a particular proposal may require resource consent from both District and Regional Councils. To maximise efficiency and integrate decision-making, joint hearings and combined hearings are held. 

Where a proposal involves consent applications to two or more councils, and those applications are to be heard, the councils are required to jointly hear and consider those applications. A joint hearing is unnecessary if councils and the applicant agree that a joint hearing need not be held.

Appeal to the Environment Court

The applicant or consent holder or any person who made a submission on the resource consent application, can appeal any decision made by the commissioner at hearing, to the Environment Court against the whole or any part of that decision.  

The court’s decisions are final unless it chooses to review its decision due to new information coming to hand, or its decision is appealed to the High Court on a question of law.  

As well as awarding costs, at the start of the appeal process the Environment Court can order “security for costs” to be paid to an appellant. This is essentially a deposit of money to ensure that the appellant is able to pay any costs that might be awarded against it.  

Applications that have been called in by the Minister for the Environment and decided by either a board of inquiry or the Environment Court, can’t be appealed to the Environment Court. However, they can be appealed on points of law only, to the High Court.

How to lodge an appeal

An appeal needs to be made on the prescribed form within 15 working days after the hearing and a fee of $500 is charged to lodge an appeal to the Environment Court.

To download the form, follow the link below.

Appeal Form [39.4kb]

Viewing hearing decisions

To view all the hearing decisions for 2011, follow the link below.

2011 Decisions

The hearing decisions for the last 3 months are listed in the table below. Each document opens in a new window.