RMA adds $30 bln to housing costs and stopped 40,000 new houses: Smith

Wed, 21 Jan 2015

By Pattrick Smellie Jan. 21 (BusinessDesk) - The Resource Management has added as much as $30 billion to the cost of new homes and stopped as many as 40,000 being built in the last decade, says Environment Minister Nick Smith in a speech outlining a wide-ranging 10 point plan for what he calls "considered but substantial" reform of the country's primary environmental and planning law. "The Act is not working for New Zealand or New Zealanders," said Smith in a speech delivered in Nelson, where he used a pile of local government plans and R...

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