Council has worked with the Government to make some changes to the Water Plan and water permits through legislation.
These legislative changes are a pragmatic approach to deal with some of the issues with the Water Plan that the draft Land and Water Regional plan had intended to fix.
These changes will help water users, and farmers and growers in Otago.
The legislative changes to the Water Plan and water permits are expected to continue to apply until a new planning framework under the upcoming resource management replacement legislation is in place. It is not clear how long this will be.
The legislative fix amends the Water Plan to achieve the following:
These changes have a direct impact on farmers and growers in Otago, and also on water permit holders who hold consents granted under Otago’s Water Plan.
ORC worked with Government to make a pragmatic “legislative fix” to address several issues with the Water Plan that were caused by the October 2024 legislation that prevented notification of freshwater planning instruments.
The changes were made to avoid unnecessary consenting processes for farmers and growers, and for water permit holders who were previously granted a short-term permit that is expected to expire before a new regional planning framework will be in place.
Changes were made to Chapter 10A. These were needed as this chapter was intended to be temporary and help transition from deemed permits/ mining rights to RMA water permits, then to enable the transition to a new plan. The provisions of Chapter 10A were expected to be replaced with a new regional framework for managing water permits by 31 December 2025.
In addition, Policy 7.D.2, Rule 12.C.1.1(g), Rule 12.C.1.1A, Rule 12.C.1.3, and Schedule 16 were revoked as previous reviews determined that they were uncertain, ambiguous and unenforceable. It was also considered that these rules would not deliver the expected water quality outcomes and would result in a large number of unnecessary resource consents being required.
Any Plan Change would have required an exemption from the Minister for the Environment, due to the legislation preventing freshwater planning instruments from being notified.
Plan Changes are costly to undertake, both for the Council and the community. They also are lengthy, and it was highly unlikely that a plan change would have been in place and operative in time to address the issues arising from not notifying the Land and Water Regional Plan.
The legislative change came into force on 21 August 2025, which was the day after the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Act received royal assent.
The legislative fix and subsequent changes to the Water Plan are expected to continue to apply until a new planning framework under the upcoming resource management replacement legislation is in place. At this stage, exactly how long this will be is unclear.
These changes to the Water Plan apply across the entire Otago region, and affect farmers, growers, and water permit holders whose permits are set to expire before a new regional planning framework is established.
These changes continue the existing framework under the Water Plan and therefore should not have any new or additional impact on the environment.
These changes do not have an impact on rates.
Farmers and growers do not need to apply for resource consent for diffuse rural discharges. They simply need to continue to use good management practices on their farm to reduce nitrogen loss and protect water quality.
For further information on managing nutrients, visit ORC’s fertiliser management webpage: www.orc.govt.nz/fertilisermanagement
Note that these changes do not affect the requirements for animal effluent storage and discharges. For further information on animal effluent rules and requirements, visit ORC’s effluent management webpage: www.orc.govt.nz/effluent
For water permit holders there are two ways this may impact you.
If you hold a water permit to take and use water that was granted after 18 March 2020 for a duration of no more than 6 years, the expiry date on your permit has been extended by 5 years.
For example, if your water permit meets the extension criteria (see question below), and the current expiry date is 15 December 2027, this has been automatically extended to 15 December 2032.
If you hold an existing water permit to take and use water that does not meet the criteria for an extension and that permit expires before a new regional planning framework is put in place, you now have access to a simpler consent pathway under the Water Pan to replace your permit.
Under this pathway you can apply for a replacement permit as a controlled activity, which means ORC must grant the replacement permit (provided you meet all the conditions of the rule) and can only set conditions on a limited number of matters.
Without these changes the controlled activity pathway would not be available for water permits that expire after 31 December 2025 and a more complex and costly application would be necessary.
If you hold a water permit that meets the criteria for an extension you are not required to do anything.
The effect of the legislation is that the expiry date of that water permit is extended. You can continue to use your water permit in line with your current conditions. ORC will make the necessary changes to the expiry date on your water permit within the next 2 years (as required by the law).
If you are impacted by these changes, ORC will contact you with information on the next steps. This will include the timeframe for you to receive an updated water permit with a new expiry date.
The duration for all new and replacement water permits granted after this date under the Water Plan was reduced to no more than six years in anticipation of a new Land and Water Regional Plan. However, work on this new plan has been paused while a new national framework on freshwater management is being developed by the Government
The water permits that have not received an extension are those that have yet to be replaced with a duration of no more than 6 years.
If you hold a water permit that meets the criteria for an extension you are not required to do anything. The effect of the legislation is that the expiry date of that water permit is extended. You can continue to use your water permit in line with your current conditions. ORC will make the necessary changes to the expiry date on your water permit within the next 2 years (as required by the law).
If you are impacted by these changes, ORC will contact you with information on the next steps. This will include the timeframe for you to receive an updated water permit with a new expiry date.
There is no direct cost to a water permit holder to update the expiry date on a water permit that meets the criteria for extension.
If you do not meet the criteria for extension, then ORC’s normal fees and charges apply for replacing your water permit. Council’s fees and charges can be found on the Consents—Fees and Charges page.
Total costs are not fixed and providing a full and complete application will minimise processing costs and time. Guidance on what is required for a replacement application can be found in Form 4C.
If you want to make changes to your consent or the consent conditions you must apply for a new consent or a variation to your current consent conditions. The variation application form can be found here:
Note that processing applications to make changes to the consent or consent conditions will incur fees and charges and that the cost for applicants will vary on the complexity and quality of the application.
New water permits are not impacted by these changes.
If you require consent for a new water permit to take and use freshwater you need to apply for a consent under the Chapter 12 rules in the Water Plan. Application forms can be found here:
December 2021
PDF | 441 KB
June 2023
PDF | 925 KB
This form is for ALL new groundwater takes and replacement groundwater take permits that are not: a) in Schedule 2C of the Regional Plan: Water for Otago. b) located within 100 metres of a connected perennial surface water body: or c) located greater than 100 metres from any connected perennial surface water body and deplete such a water body by at least 5 litres per second.
The policy direction in Chapter 10A of the Water Plan on consent term continues to apply to all new freshwater takes and a maximum term of 6 years is able to be granted.
Guidance on the rules in Chapter 12 that apply to new takes can be found here:
The changes are unlikely to impact your water permit. You can continue to operate under the consent conditions and consent term on your permit. If your permit expires before a new plan is in place, there is now an easier consent pathway to replace the water permit
Although there is no end date in the legislation, once the Water Plan has been replaced these provisions will no longer apply. This is likely to be less than five years.
These changes apply regardless of the use of the take or the type of allocation. The key criteria as to whether an extension applies, or the consent can be replaced under the Chapter 10A rules have been outlined above.
If your groundwater take is allocated as surface water, then the simple consent pathways detailed in the FAQs above apply. Groundwater takes allocated as surface water are either located in a Schedule 2C aquifer, are located within 100 m of any connected perennial surface water body or are located further than 100 m from such a connected water body and the groundwater take will deplete the surface water body by at least 5 litres/second. This criteria is outlined in Policy 6.4.1A of the Water Plan. Please get in touch if you would like additional details to confirm if this applies to your take.
If your groundwater take is not allocated as surface water, then the key change is that the maximum term that your replacement take will now receive is 6 years. You will need to apply for a replacement groundwater take under the Chapter 12 rules in the Water Plan. This will require you to consider effects of the take on the aquifer, neighbouring groundwater users and surface water. You can use Form 5 to make such a replacement application. Council will be producing further guidance shortly on what is required for these applications.
No, these changes do not apply to applications to transfer a site of a water take. These applications are continued to be processed under s136 of the Resource Management Act.
Transfer application forms can be found here: