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Applications are now open to have a project accepted for processing under the Fast Track Approvals Bill, which is before the Environment Select Committee. The application deadline is 3 May 2024.
The Bill
The Bill is intended to provide a ‘one stop shop’ process for obtaining RMA and other legislative approvals for projects with significant regional or national benefits. It seeks to achieve substantially condensed decision timeframes, and places greater emphasis on facilitating these projects as well as providing for more limited appeal rights.
The first list - Part A and B projects
“Part A listed projects” will be automatically referred to a yet-to-be-appointed expert panel. We assume these projects will gain priority.
“Part B referred projects” will be considered to have significant regional or national benefits (meaning we think that they will have a good chance of getting referred to an expert panel by the joint Ministers). But they will need to go through the extra processing step of being referred to panels by Ministers, so approvals may take longer than Part A projects.
Expert panels will consider both types of projects and make recommendations to approve the projects with conditions or decline them, before handing them back to the Ministers for the final decision.
Process
Applications to be on the first list should be sent to the Ministry for the Environment for consideration by the Fast Track Advisory Group, expected to be announced soon, which will make recommendations to the Ministers – the Minister of Infrastructure (Chris Bishop), the Minister of Transport (Simeon Brown) and the Minister of Regional Development (Shane Jones).
Those projects which are accepted will be added by amendment to the Bill when it returns to the House. They will be inserted in either Schedule 2A (Part A listed projects) or 2B (Part B referred projects).
We are happy to provide further advice on the process and assist with your applications. Please contact one of the below partners to discuss.
