Proposed Site and Areas of Significance to Māori being considered
The Gore District Council's Proposed District Plan process will consider Site and Area of Significance to Māori (SASM) at a hearing scheduled for early December.
No decisions on this topic have been made with the Council still working its way through submissions on the Proposed District Plan. There have been three hearings to date, with more scheduled through to next year.
The Council’s District Plan Review committee principal advisor Matt Heale said it was important for people to realise the hearings were ongoing.
Southland Federated Farmers, interest groups and other landowners who have lodged submissions on the Proposed District Plan will have an opportunity to be heard on this matter at the SASM hearing (HS8), which starts on 2 December.
What are SASMs?
A SASM is a Site and Area of Significance to Māori. The National Planning Standards describe ‘Sites and Areas of Significance to Māori’ as including “wāhi tapu, wāhi tūpuna, statutory acknowledgement areas, areas with customary rights, historic sites, cultural landscapes, taonga and other culturally important sites and areas”.
The Proposed District Plan does not list specific SASM within the Gore District. The Council has followed the guidance of Hokonui Rūnanga as mana whenua in the Gore District to determine the extent of their associations with the natural environment. Hokonui Rūnanga advised the Council that since they see the entire Gore District as culturally important, listing specific sites would imply non-listed sites were not culturally important. Instead, the PDP considers the impacts of specific activities on Ngāi Tahu cultural values through the rules in the plan.
There are no specific restrictions associated with SASM.
The proposed approach in the Proposed District Plan is to focus on particular rules rather than identifying specific sites. For example, when the Proposed District Plan requires a resource consent, such as when an activity breaches rules around height or size, or is too close to a river, input from a range of technical experts may be required. Sometimes (but not always) this may include input on the cultural impacts of the activity. This can range from a simple email to a more detailed assessment, depending on the scale and effects of the proposal.
The need for this kind of input will be determined through a discussion between the Council, the resource consent applicant, and mana whenua.
In practice, this approach is not that different from the current District Plan, where mana whenua is asked to review specific types of resource consents and provide comments in accordance with the Service Level Agreement between the Council and Hokonui Rūnanga.
This process has been used for a number of years by the Council.
Overall, the approach to SASM in the Proposed District Plan is not a significant change from the status quo – rather, it just makes a process that is largely already happening much clearer to District Plan users.
Iwi & Public Involvement
In 2021, a Southland-wide Cultural Landscape Assessment Study was undertaken by Te Ao Marama Inc, on behalf of Ngāi Tahu ki Murihiku, and in partnership with Environment Southland, Southland District Council, Gore District Council and Invercargill City Council.
One finding of this study was that it was inappropriate to single out specific locations as being more significant to Ngāi Tahu that other locations. Hokonui Rūnanga advised the Council in the early stages of the Gore District Plan Review process that they wanted the Stage 1 Southland Cultural Landscape Assessment Study (2021) to inform the Proposed District Plan approach to SASM.
Representatives from Hokonui Rūnanga co-drafted the draft district plan provisions with the Council’s planners as part of the preparation of the Draft and Proposed District Plan.
Southland Federated Farmers, interest groups and other landowners who have lodged submissions will have an opportunity to be heard on this matter at the SASM hearing (HS8), which starts on 2 December this year.
Some matters relating to SASM were discussed as part of the Mana Whenua Chapter hearing in Hearing Stream 3 (HS3) on 22 July. Representatives from Southland Federated Farmers were present at the HS3 hearing and presented evidence. The recording of this hearing is available on the Council’s YouTube channel.
RMA Obligations
The Council has obligations under the Resource Management Act to, among other things, protect historic heritage from inappropriate subdivision, use and development (s6f) recognise and provide for the relationship of Māori and their culture and traditions with their ancestral lands, water, sites, waahi tapu, and other taonga (s6(e)); have particular regard to kaitiakitanga (S7(a); and take into account the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) (S8).
There is a lot of supporting information, including all submissions, on our Proposed District Plan page. Here’s the link https://lets.talk.goredc.govt.nz/hearings-information.
You can also view hearings to date on the Council’s YouTube channel ttps://www.youtube.com/@GoreDC
