After having their resource consent application returned for a second time due to a lack of information including a site specific CIA, company director Paul Taylor spits the dummy and labels ECan and Waimate DC’s actions as “unlawful” and an “abuse of power.”
In a letter to both councils dated 23 December, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the Resource Management Act (RMA) had “no requirements for a Cultural Impact Assessment to be provided as a prerequisite to making a legally competent application.”
Company provides historic CIA gleaned from unrelated resource consent application.
The company had its September 2021 resource consent application returned due to a lack of information, including a cultural impact assessment report (CIA). The company relodged its application just days before RMA changes came into effect, changes that would mean its application would take GHG emissions into account.
The company’s second application included a CIA from Oceania Dairy Company to discharge wastewater into the ocean. In his letter to ECan, Taylor stated that the CIA ‘meticulously identifies possible cultural value issues and explains why none has material effect or relevance ‘. He further stated that ‘it follows that the Council’s rejection of the application on this basis is perverse and unreasonable in law.’
This letter implies that Mr Taylor believes it is appropriate for him to decide if SIRRL’s application has a material effect or relevance to cultural values. If it were up to proponents of these types of developments to determine cultural effects, then there would be no need for cultural impacts to be taken into account when determining the effects of these types of applications, therefore bypassing Mana whenua from the process.