Info: We refer below to sections of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 as amended by the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Act 2025.
The version of the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 on the New Zealand Legislation website will be updated soon with these amendments. In the meantime you can find them in the amendment act.
Local authorities play a critical role in ensuring timely, efficient and robust decision-making for Fast-track approvals. This page summarises your responsibilities under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 (the Act) and provides some practical tips.
The Act requires you to use timely, efficient, consistent, and cost-effective processes proportionate to the functions and duties you are performing. This includes acting promptly, including where no specific time frame has been set.
The Act specifies maximum timeframes for many parts of the Fast-track process. The process moves at pace and due dates cannot be extended. You should ensure your internal processes enable you to respond efficiently to Fast-track requests.
For general information about the Fast-track process, read the process overview.
We have detailed information on cost recovery for local authorities and administering agencies (collectively, ‘agencies’).
When a referral or substantive application relevant to your area is lodged, the Fast-track team will provide you with access to it in the application portal and link you to it for cost recovery purposes. When responding to requests for written advice, reports and comments, please respond through the portal unless otherwise requested.
Land exchange applications are managed directly by the Department of Conservation. DoC will advise you if they require your input on an application.
The panel conveners have issued a practice and procedure guidance note that provides guidance to all participants in the substantive approvals process. Section 5 of the guide outlines requirements for local authorities and administering agencies.
Practice and procedure guidance note (PDF, 303KB)
While the Fast-track legislation does not require the applicant to consult you on their application, they might wish to. This is an opportunity for applicants and local authorities to engage early on the details of the approvals being sought, identify and work to narrow down or resolve likely issues, and form a view on any conditions that might be required.
Tip: Consider providing guidance for applicants on the information that may support effective pre-lodgement consultation.
Referral and substantive applications have different information requirements under the Act. For example, referral applications may not include detailed assessments of the effects of the project on the environment, comprehensive description of resource consents required, or proposed conditions.
Because of this, applicants are encouraged to proactively re-engage with local authorities on referred projects before they lodge a substantive application as an opportunity to understand how the application has advanced in the interim.
There is no general requirement under the Act for an applicant to engage further with local authorities between referral and lodging a substantive application (other than for regional councils to identify relevant existing resource consents for the same activity – covered below).
The EPA does not recover costs of pre-application consultation on behalf of other parties. You must agree and organise directly with the applicant any recovery of costs for consulting and providing assistance to them before the application is lodged.
Tip: Agree with the applicant what consultation would involve, what documentation you would provide as an outcome, and how to handle any associated costs.
Applicants must notify relevant local authorities of their intention to lodge a referral application or a substantive application for a listed project. If you want to respond to the applicant, you have 20 working days to do so. They cannot lodge the application during this period.
If an applicant began consulting local authorities before 31 March 2026, the applicant is required to complete that consultation.
Applicants seeking approval for a resource consent they do not currently hold must notify each regional council that is the consent authority for an area where the approval would apply.
Within 10 working days, you must notify the applicant whether there is an existing resource consent for the same activity using some or all of the same natural resource, where the resource consent being sought through the Fast-track process could not be fully exercised until the existing consent expires. If one exists, you must also notify the holder of that consent. You must then notify the applicant whether the existing consent holder intends to lodge an application under the Resource Management Act 1991.
The applicant must provide this correspondence as part of their referral or substantive application.
If a listed project is planned to proceed in stages, the authorised person may apply to the Minister for a determination that they may lodge a separate substantive application for a specified stage of the project.
After receiving this application, the Minister may ask the authorised person and any other person or body to provide further information about the specified stage of the project timeframe.
The Minister may request information from a local authority under section 37A(4), but is not required to. This differs from referral applications, where the Minister must invite comment from the local council.
Any request for further information will contain a requested timeframe to respond to the request.
The type of information requested will be specified in the request.
The information requested should focus on the scale of the regional or national benefits of the specific stage of the project to inform the Minister’s determination, with reference to the criteria for referral in section 22.
At the comments stage of a referral application, you must provide the Minister with comments advising of any competing applications or existing resource consents. If none exist, please also note this in your comments. Any written comments must be provided no later than 15 working days after the invitation is received – the Minister is not required to consider any comments received late.
You may also be invited to provide any information your agency holds on other matters that will be specified in the portal. This could include information on:
the applicant’s regulatory compliance history
whether there are likely to be significant adverse effects on the environment from the local authority’s perspective
whether the local authority considers the proposal involves a prohibited activity under the RMA
any other matters specified in the invitation to comment.
Minister invites comments – Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 – New Zealand Legislation website
You may wish to provide other information not requested in the invitation to comment. Information must be relevant to the application and focused on informing the decision being made, taking account of relevant assessment criteria and reasons to accept or decline the application.
Tip: Relate comments to the matters the Minister considers when deciding whether to accept or decline the application under section 21.
Focus on whether the project would have significant regional or national benefits relating to section 22 criteria.
Technical assessment of all the project details is not required – that's the role of the expert panel if the project is referred to the Fast-track.
Relevant local authorities will be notified of the Minister’s decisions on the application and the associated project.
When a substantive application relevant to your area is lodged, the Fast-track team will contact you to involve you in the process – you do not need to pre-register.
In addition to the specific information outlined below, under section 90(2) the EPA may request other information held by relevant local authorities at any time before or after it receives the substantive application.
For example, you may be asked for information on landowners from your rating database to assist the panel in identifying who to invite to comment.
You will receive either an email or a notification in the portal whenever you are requested to provide information or comments. You must use the portal to provide this information unless specified otherwise.
You may have a number of people contributing internally to the feedback your agency will give in response to a request. Please do not submit this ‘internal working’; you should provide your agency’s finalised feedback as a single compiled response.
During assessment of a substantive application, the EPA consults relevant local authorities on the application’s completeness and scope. The EPA must complete this assessment within 15 working days from the date of lodgement; during this timeframe, you will be given 5 working days to respond to the EPA’s request.
Tip: Focus on whether the information provided in the application has been specified in sufficient detail to enable a decision to be made on the approvals that would otherwise be decided under the Resource Management Act 1991, or other specified Act.
The EPA will also consult with you on whether there are competing applications or existing consents for the same activity. They may do this during the completeness assessment period, but must make their decision within 10 working days after they decide on the application’s completeness. When consulted, you will have 5 working days to respond to the EPA’s request.
Tip: Focus on completeness, scope, existing consents and completing applications – not the merits of the application.
The panel convener must consult with relevant local authorities before setting the timeframe for decision documents to be issued. Before appointing a panel, the panel convener may invite relevant local authorities to a conference to help identify likely issues and set decision timeframes.
For guidance on the panel convener conference and process, see section 6 of the panel conveners' practice and procedure guidance note. Relevant local authorities may also be involved in conferences and hearings directed by panels.
Practice and procedure guidance note (PDF, 303KB)
Tip: You may need to highlight to the conveners that local tikanga and mātauranga considerations need addressing.
This helps the conveners ensure that the appropriate Rūnanga are involved in the project to advise the applicant and panel.
Every panel must include one person nominated by the relevant local authorities. Give this consideration ahead of time and be prepared to nominate one member and an alternate for the panel.
At least one nominee will be appointed if multiple authorities are involved. If no nomination is made, the convener will appoint a person with the appropriate skills and experience.
Membership of panels – Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 – New Zealand Legislation website
Tip: When nominating panel members, you may confer with other relevant local authorities but you should not confer with the applicant.
The panel must invite written comments from relevant local authorities. For land exchange applications (s35), the Director-General of Conservation must invite written comments from relevant local authorities. In each case you have 20 working days to provide those comments.
Any comments provided to the Director-General or panel must be relevant to the application and the decision being made on the approvals sought.
Tip: Provide in-depth comments, including technical information if relevant to inform the expert panel’s assessment of the application.
Engage expert opinion if required, evaluate the application thoroughly, note areas of agreement and contention, and ensure comments are clear and evidence-based.
You may wish to provide other information not requested in the invitation to comment. This information should be relevant to the application and focused on informing the decision being made, taking account of relevant assessment criteria and reasons to accept or decline the application. Be mindful that it is the expert panel’s role (not the council’s role) to undertake the overall assessment and decision of a substantive application under the Act. Also be mindful of the Act’s procedural principles in section 10 when considering what comments to make.
Under section 68A, an applicant may propose reducing the scope of their application. The panel has the option to submit this proposal to the Minister for a determination, or to continue to process the application in its reduced form.
Where a panel submits an applicant’s reduction in scope proposal to the Minister for determination, the Minister may request further information about the application from any other person. The intent of this process is to determine whether the application would still have significant regional or national benefits in its proposed reduced form, reflecting the purpose of the Act.
The Minister may request information from a local authority under section 68B(2), but is not required to.
Any request for further information will include a timeframe for receipt of a response.
The type of information sought will be specified in the request.
The information provided should focus on the scale of the regional or national benefits of the project, compared to its original state, to inform the Minister’s determination.
Once the Minister has made a determination, the panel will notify the relevant local authorities.
Before deciding to grant an approval for a substantive application, the panel must invite comments on the draft conditions from any local authority or other body with a statutory responsibility to enforce or monitor compliance with the conditions.
Relevant local authorities that provide comments to the panel on a substantive application are also invited to comment on the draft conditions. Comments must be made by the date specified in the invitation.
Applicants should engage early with local authorities on draft conditions and management plans, and provide feedback and propose alternative or additional conditions where necessary.
Relevant local authorities will be issued with the panel’s decision on the approvals sought in a substantive application.
Once an approval has been granted through the Fast-track process, the relevant local authority has the same functions, duties and powers as if it had made these decisions itself under a specified Act to which the approval relates.
Relevant local authorities may appeal to the High Court against the whole or a part of the decision, but only on a question of law.
All communications about an application must be in writing and either submitted through the application portal in response to a request, or emailed to the EPA at info@fasttrack.govt.nz
Appendix A of the panel conveners' practice and procedure guidance provides more detail on communications with the panel conveners and panel members.
Panel conveners' practice and procedure guidance (PDF, 303 KB)
Information you provide to the EPA or a panel may be published on the Fast-track website. This information, together with all information generated by activities undertaken in fulfilment of your functions and duties under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024, is subject to the Official Information Act 1982. This includes information you commission from consultants and other parties to assist you in fulfilling your functions and duties.
Sections 25-26 of the panel conveners' practice and procedure guidance provide more detail on grounds to withhold information, sensitive information, etc.
Application documents are published on the relevant project page as soon as possible after checks are made, including any redactions requested by the applicant or required by the EPA under the Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 or Privacy Act 2020.
More information on what we publish about projects, and when:
Official Information Act requests and accessing our information