New standards for building on whenua Māori come into force

New standards for building homes on Māori land come into effect on today, replacing the patchwork of council provisions with a single set of planning rules that will apply across the whole country.

Māori land has been notoriously difficult to develop and the government is hoping the changes will "unlock" papakāinga across Aotearoa.

Miriana Stephens (Ngāti Rārua, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui) was part of the team who developed one of the largest papakāinga projects in Te Tauihu o te Waka-a-Māui (the top of the South Island) at Te Āwhina Marae in Motueka.

She said there are a range of challenges when developing whenua Māori, from inconsistent planning rules across districts, to the costly consenting process, to securing capital on collectively-owned land.

The new standards will potentially remove some of those barriers, especially around planning, but that is only one aspect of building a papakāinga, she said.

"What I have found with housing projects, you really need to ensure you've got good project management and technical expertise. So I think the standards will go a way in supporting the planning process.

"But there's still many other factors that you need to take into account when you're building housing projects."

Stephens said papakāinga can be more than just housing, it helps to maintain connection to whakapapa and to the land.

"It's interesting how people interpret papakāinga because it's actually from our perspective at Te Āwhina Marae, it's not just housing. It's actually a way of being, you know, it's living together. And to be fair, we haven't lived together for over 100 years because of colonisation, urbanisation.

"So we're learning to live together again, but on our land and, you know, caring for one another, raising our tamariki together, looking after our elders, growing kai, practising our tikanga and culture."

The government released in June new National Environmental Standards for Papakāinga (NES-P) which permit up to 10 homes to be built on ancestral Māori land in rural, residential and Māori purpose zones, provided they meet environmental and safety standards.

Projects larger than 10 homes will still require consent there will be a clearer consenting pathway.

In a press release announcing the standards, Minister for RMA Reform Chris Bishop said they provided consistent rules across the country for all councils, reducing complexity, time and cost for Māori landowners, councils and communities.

"We've heard from councils and Māori landowners that planning rules have made it too hard to develop Māori land. These standards give clearer national direction and make it easier to build papakāinga, while maintaining appropriate protections for the environment and residents," he said.

Stephens said standards and rules were there as a guide, but building a papakāinga came down to relationships, with central and local government and with the local community.

"I'm seeing the standard as being positive. I guess it's always the devil's in the detail or the interpretation of those standards. But, you know, we're innovative, we're creative and at the end of the day, our people desperately need housing. We need to look at different ways of doing things, but some of it is still traditional it's just bringing them forward and modernising what we can achieve."

Joe Simpkin is one of the directors of Advance Build, a Northland based building company which has been involved in several papakāinga projects, including eight recently completed homes in Waitangi.

Their work includes the technical feasibility, development plans, managing the resource consent process, and providing the infrastructure as well, he said.

He said ownership can be quite tricky at times, sometimes there may not necessarily be a well-established trust or administration over the land and it can have a lot of owners.

"A struggle we face, particularly in the Tai Tokerau region, is the Māori Land Court is a long way behind with its records. So when things do need to be updated, that can be a challenge, and it can, I guess, prevent development as well."

If there is a bank involved, lending is another challenge, and Simpkin said it was important to get the right people involved and the right processes in place as early as possible.

Banks have traditionally been hesitant to lend money on land with collective title, the Kāinga Whenua loan scheme created in 2010 by Kāinga Ora, Kiwibank, and the Māori Land Court, was for a long time the one specific loan of its kind.

"Certainly the banks have come a long way in recent times formerly it was just Kiwibank that offered lending services, that's to my knowledge, but other banks have come on board now and are offering that as well," he said.

Simpkin said until now it had been at the discretion of councils to include papakāinga provisions in their district plan, and while Northland councils have those in place, the new NES would bring other councils in line.

"I suppose by standardising it, it's going to help with collaboration across the country. Somebody who's done a project in the South Island can speak with somebody right up north and their learnings or their processes should be the same going forward. So there could be a lot more sharing of information that will be relevant to anyone anywhere in the country."

Another benefit is that the standards allow for more ancillary buildings, such as education and health services, which created more of a "well-rounded community," he said.

Northland housing provider Te Pouahi o Te Taitokerau was involved in the consultation process for the new rules and general manager Kris MacDonald supported the changes.

"There's been really an inconsistency of the district planning when it came to papakāinga. So it's good that these standards resolve some of the issues in building papakāinga, which tended to be that there were limits on the numbers of buildings you could put on a site in terms of being able to squeeze a couple of homes on a site."

He was hopeful they will create the flexibility needed to build more housing on whenua Māori.

Councils will need to apply the new standards from today.