Proposed Plan Change A2

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Alignment with NES for Air Quality

Decisions notified 7 april 2012

Council appointed an Independent Commissioner to hear and make decisions on submissions on proposed Council Plan Change A2. No hearing was eventually needed for Plan Change A2, however the Independent Commissioner was still required to make decisions on the submissions made. These decisions have now been made and received by Council.

Plan Change A2 proposes to alter the Nelson Air Quality Plan as discussed in the ‘Background’ section below.

The Commissioner’s decision was to approve the Plan Change as notified subject to one modification. This was that the target dates in Policy A5-1.4 be:

  • for Airshed A, not more than 3 exceedances of the standard by 2016, and not more than one exceedance by 2020 as follows;
  • for Airshed B, not more than 1 exceedance of the standard by 2016.

These amendments were to ensure consistency with the provisions of the NES, given that under the National Environmental Standard the most recent monitoring data in Airshed B meant an earlier target date had to apply to that airshed.

The full ‘Report and Decisions on Submissions’ document can be downloaded from the ‘Original Documents’ section below.

Submitters and further submitters have been served with a copy of these decisions and under Cl.14 of the First Schedule of the RMA any submitter or further submitter may appeal any provision or matter that is the subject of their submission to the Environment Court within 30 working days of this service.

More information on making appeals to the environment court can be found on the Ministry for the Environment’s website here.

Background

Plan Change A2 proposes to make two changes to the operative Nelson Air Quality Plan to align it with the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality (NES).  The Government recently amended the NES to increase the time for compliance with the standard for particle matter (PM10).  This Plan Change proposes to:

i) Amend the target dates for compliance with the PM10 standard in Policy A5-1.4 to align them with the new NES dates, and

ii) remove that part of the rule requiring the compulsory phase-out of domestic enclosed burners in Airsheds A and B1 installed after 1 January 2000 and which are not compliant with the emission requirements in the Air Quality Plan i.e. essentially burners installed 2000 - 2003 (when the Air Quality Plan was notified).

Documents and downloads

Original documents

A copy of the proposed Plan Change is also available for viewing at the Nelson City Council Customer Service Centre or any of Nelson’s libraries.

Contact person

For more information contact the Principal Adviser - City Development on +64 3 546 0432.