WRC Plan Change 2 Taupō Overseer version made operative on Monday 12 October 2020

https://www.waikatoregion.govt.nz/council/policy-and-plans/rules-and-regulation/taupo-overseer/

About the plan change

The Waikato Regional Plan has rules to manage farming so that Lake Taupō water quality is protected. Prior to Plan Change 2, the current rules specified that nitrogen leaching was to be modelled using version 5.4.3 of Overseer. This version of Overseer expires in December 2020, so a change is needed to the rules to allow updated versions of Overseer to be used.

The change to the regional plan needed to be made well before December 2020 so all properties with a nitrogen discharge allowance (NDA), the 83 current farming consents, as well as the nitrogen trading contracts, could be updated using new Overseer versions before then.

A standard plan change process was unlikely to result in new operative rules early enough. That’s why Waikato Regional Council requested to use a ‘streamlined planning process’ (SPP) which is allowed by the Resource Management Act. (For full documentation use link above)