The Otago Regional Council is developing a new draft Land and Water Regional Plan (LWRP) to protect Otago’s precious waterways for future generations.

Originally scheduled to be considered for notification in October 2024, work on finalising the new land and water regional plan has been paused while a new national framework on freshwater management is being developed by the Government.

ORC will work closely with the Government in understanding what the new NPSFM direction will look like and how that will impact the draft land and water regional plan.

As the new land and water regional plan is still in draft form, it is not official council policy and has no legal effect. This means that the current Regional Plan: Water and Regional Plan: Waste remain operative

The draft Land and Water Regional Plan has been four years in the making; a collaborative effort between Councillors, mana whenua, Council staff, and a lot of input from our community and stakeholders including three public engagement stages between Nov 2021 and Nov 2023 resulting in more than a thousand individual pieces of feedback - showing it really does take a community to make a plan for the future.

A big thank you to everyone who took the time to give feedback on the proposed new rules in our draft land and water plan. We received over 550 responses from members of the community wanting to have their voice heard on the draft plan.

So far, the main areas of feedback have been around:

• changes around setbacks from waterbodies for various farming activities
• limits on the number of cows per hectare as a measure of intensity
• restrictions on the amount of nitrogen fertiliser used per hectare
• minimum flows for the Manuherekia River

Feedback was analysed in November 2023, and presented to Council in December 2023

Over the period January 2024 to August 2024, we completed statutory consultation with those who could be affected by the plan. This included Iwi authorities as well as stakeholders such as city and district councils, central government, industry groups, and environmental groups.

Once we have more clarity on when the new national framework on freshwater management will come into effect and the direction set in this national framework, we will update the programme for finalising the draft Land and Water Regional Plan and set a timeframe for a decision on notification.

We began this journey in 2019 when the Minister for the Environment asked the Otago Regional Council to prepare a new Regional Policy Statement and Land and Water Plan. Previous planning rules and regulations were no longer deemed fit to provide protection for Otago’s waterways and surrounding environment.

Between 2020 and 2022 we engaged with our community around the visions and values people wanted for our waterways and the land affecting them in this new, more in-depth Plan. We also spoke with communities about actions that would help us reach positive environmental outcomes – these were that Otago's freshwater and land activities need to be:

• Healthy for plants, animals, and people and look after our region for future generations
• Safe for activities like swimming
• Beneficial for activities like fishing
• Sustainably managed; and
• Respectful of cultural and historical places