Source
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/2004/0309/latest/whole.pdf — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
NES-Air Quality (SR 2004/309) — wood burners and the polluted-airshed gate
🔴 The airshed rule that actually bites Neobiome is not the wood-burner rule
reg 17 requires a consent authority to DECLINE a resource consent to discharge PM10 that would add >2.5 µg/m³ in a polluted airshed. A community biomass boiler is a consented discharge to air →
biomass_district_heatingis effectively blocked in a polluted airshed. The GIS map already carries an “Airsheds” overlay; the engine does not consult it.
Summary
SR 2004/309, as at 1 September 2020 (22 pp). Sets national ambient air-quality standards, and — for Neobiome — three operative rules: wood burners on small allotments (reg 22–24), open fires in breached airsheds (reg 24A), and the polluted-airshed PM10 gate on consented discharges (reg 17).
Read against CR_046, it corrects the wood-burner position in two ways and surfaces a rule the register missed entirely.
Key claims
- claim: "reg 22 Discharge from woodburners installed on certain properties after 1 September 2005 prohibited (verbatim): '(1) The discharge of particles to air from a woodburner installed after 1 September 2005 in a building on a property with an ALLOTMENT SIZE OF LESS THAN 2 HECTARES is prohibited. (2) SUBCLAUSE (1) DOES NOT APPLY IF the discharge from the wood-burner complies with- (a) the design standard in regulation 23; and (b) the thermal efficiency standard in regulation 24.' So a COMPLIANT low-emission burner is permitted at ANY allotment size - it is not a ban below 2 ha."
source_location: "reg 22(1)-(2), p.14"
- claim: "reg 23 Design standard (verbatim): 'The design standard for a woodburner is a discharge of LESS THAN 1.5 GRAM OF PARTICLES FOR EACH KILOGRAM OF DRY WOOD BURNT.' Measured per 'Australian/New Zealand Standard AS/NZS 4013:2014, Domestic solid fuel burning appliances-Method for determination of flue gas emission'. reg 24 sets a thermal efficiency standard (ratio of useable heat energy output to energy input)."
source_location: "reg 23(1)-(2), reg 24(1), p.14-15"
- claim: "reg 17 - THE POLLUTED-AIRSHED GATE ON CONSENTED DISCHARGES (verbatim): 'A consent authority MUST DECLINE an application for a resource consent (the proposed consent) to discharge PM10 if the discharge to be expressly allowed by the consent would be likely, at any time, to increase the concentration of PM10 (calculated as a 24-hour mean under Schedule 1) by MORE THAN 2.5 MICROGRAMS PER CUBIC METRE in any part of a POLLUTED AIRSHED other than the site on which the consent would be exercised.' (Exception in 17(2) for replacing an existing consent for the same activity on the same site.)"
source_location: "reg 17(1)-(2)"
- claim: "reg 24A Discharge from certain OPEN FIRES prohibited: once the PM10 standard is breached in an airshed on or after 1 September 2011, the regional council must publicly notify a ban; the discharge of particles from domestic solid-fuel burning OPEN FIRES installed in that area on or after the date of the ban (12 months after the breach) is prohibited. Applies to open fires, NOT to enclosed woodburners."
source_location: "reg 24A(1)-(4), p.15"Neobiome Intelligence relevance
Two corrections to CR_046’s wood-burner line
CR_046 records: “Wood burner outside a polluted airshed on a property >2 ha — no discharge consent.”
1. Below 2 ha is NOT a ban. reg 22(2) is the half CR_046 omits: the prohibition “does not apply if” the burner meets the design standard (<1.5 g particles/kg dry wood) and the thermal efficiency standard. A compliant, authorised low-emission burner is permitted at any allotment size. The “>2 ha” framing wrongly implies small sites are blocked.
2. 🔴 The threshold is per-ALLOTMENT (legal title), not per-household density.
A co-housing community of 30 dwellings at 0.05 ha/household on a single 5-hectare title has an allotment size of 5 ha — reg 22 does not apply at all. If that same community subdivides into <2 ha lots, every burner must then meet the design + efficiency standards.
Tenure choice changes the technology rule. Earthsong is a body corporate on one title. The B4a archetypes describe density (ha/household), not allotment size — so the model cannot currently distinguish an unsubdivided community on one large title from a subdivided one on small lots, even though the NES-AQ treats them differently.
🔴 The rule the register missed — reg 17 blocks a biomass boiler in a polluted airshed
CR_046 frames airsheds around wood burners. The regulation that actually bites is reg 17, and it governs consented discharges:
“A consent authority must decline an application for a resource consent to discharge PM10 if the discharge… would be likely, at any time, to increase the concentration of PM10… by more than 2.5 micrograms per cubic metre in any part of a polluted airshed…”
A community biomass boiler is a consented discharge to air. In a polluted airshed the consent authority is directed to decline it — not to weigh it. So biomass_district_heating (D01) is effectively blocked in a polluted airshed, and the model does not gate on this despite the “Airsheds” overlay already existing in the GIS map. No further research is needed to close this: the rule is settled and the data is there.
The cross-instrument synthesis: the binding constraint on wood heat is the Building Act, not the NES-AQ
| Instrument | Effect on wood heat |
|---|---|
| NES-AQ (this source) | A compliant burner is permitted — any allotment size, outside a polluted airshed |
| Building Act Sch 1A ([[reg_007_small-standalone-dwellings-amendment-act-2025 | REG_007]] cl 2(1)(l)) |
Taking the ~$4,000/dwelling Schedule 1A consent saving forecloses wood heat regardless of allotment size or airshed. That is a cleaner statement of the D04 design fork than the wiki previously carried — the Building Act, not air quality, is what rules out the wood burner.
Research targets
Research gaps
- None new. The biomass/airshed gate is an implementation matter, not research (the rule is settled by reg 17 and the airshed layer already exists).
Notes
Primary secondary-legislation, as at 1 September 2020, read verbatim via pdftotext -layout — data_quality: verified. Fetched by curl from legislation.govt.nz.
AS/NZS 4013:2014 (the flue-gas test method behind reg 23) is a paywalled Standards NZ document and was not obtained — but it is not needed: the regulation states the numeric standard (<1.5 g/kg) directly, and councils publish authorised-burner lists of models that meet it. The paywall does not impair this finding.
Connections
Links to
Technologies (1): Biomass District Heating (Wood Chip)
Cases (1): Earthsong Eco-Neighbourhood
Referenced by
Technologies (1): Biomass District Heating (Wood Chip)
Concepts (1): Regulatory Consenting for Off-Grid Communities…