Solar farm consenting set to benefit from tweaks to land use rules

Solar and sheep farms can be found together on highly productive land. (Image: Lodestone Energy)

Fri, 04 Oct 2024

Changes to rules on highly productive land use should ease the consenting path for solar farms and flood works.They also clear up confusion over indoor farming activities, which the rules had appeared to prohibit.The National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land (NPS-HPL) came into force in 2022, under the Resource Management Act. Under the policy, every regional council must, with several exceptions, map land as highly productive if it is in a general rural zone or rural production zone, forms a large and geographically cohesive ar...

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Solar farm consenting set to benefit from tweaks to land use rules

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