Source
https://www.nrc.govt.nz/media/mvkegzss/regional-plan-for-northland-march-2026.pdf — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)
Regional Plan for Northland: water takes and aquifer allocation
Summary
Northland’s plan takes a structurally different approach from the other regional plans held in this corpus. Rather than setting its own permitted daily volume for a domestic take, it carves the statutory exemption out of its rule framework entirely: takes made in accordance with section 14(3) of the Resource Management Act sit outside the plan’s water-take rules. Anything not covered by the statutory exemption or another specific rule is a discretionary activity requiring consent.
The consequence is that Northland has no general permitted volume threshold to state for a community domestic supply. The binding constraint is the statutory test itself, plus the aquifer allocation limits in Policy H.4.4, which are expressed as percentages of average annual recharge and which expressly count exempt domestic takes toward the limit even though those takes need no consent.
Key claims
- claim: "The plan restates the statutory exemption and then carves it out of its own rules. Section C.5.1 note, verbatim: 'The RMA, Section 14(3) states that a person is not prohibited from taking, using damming or diverting any water, heat, or energy if: in the case of freshwater, the water, heat or energy is required to be taken and used for a person's reasonable domestic needs or the reasonable needs of a person's animals for drinking water, provided the taking or use does not, or is not likely to, have an adverse effect on the environment (RMA s14(3)(b))'. Followed by, verbatim: 'The following rules do not apply to the taking and use of water that is done in accordance with Sections 14(3)(b) - (e) of the RMA'."
source_location: "Section C.5.1 Taking and use of water, introductory note, p.146"
- claim: "Rule C.5.1.12 Other water takes, verbatim: 'The taking and use of water, or the taking and use of heat or energy from water or heat or energy from the material surrounding geothermal water, that is not the subject of any other rule in this Plan is a discretionary activity.' This is the residual tier: a take outside the statutory exemption and outside a specific rule requires a discretionary-activity consent."
source_location: "Rule C.5.1.12, p.151"
- claim: "Rule C.5.1.13 makes a registered drinking water supply take below a minimum flow or level a NON-COMPLYING activity, verbatim: 'The taking and use of freshwater from a river, lake or natural wetland for registered drinking water supply when the flow in the river or water level in the natural wetland or lake is below a minimum flow or minimum level set in H.4 Environmental flows and levels, and that is not permitted by a rule in this Plan, is a non-complying activity.'"
source_location: "Rule C.5.1.13"
- claim: "Policy H.4.4 sets aquifer allocation limits as a share of recharge, verbatim: 'The quantity of freshwater that can be taken from an aquifer must not exceed the following limits: ... for a Coastal Aquifer, an allocation limit of whichever is the greater of: i. ten percent of the average annual recharge of the aquifer, or ii. the quantities of water authorised to be taken by [existing consents] ... for Other Aquifers, an allocation limit of whichever is the greater of: i. 35 percent of the average annual recharge, or ii. the quantities authorised to be taken by [existing consents]'. The Aupouri Aquifer is governed separately by Table 32 plus minimum groundwater levels to prevent saline intrusion."
source_location: "Policy H.4.4 Allocation limits for aquifers, conditions 1(a)-(c), pp.310-311"
- claim: "Exempt domestic takes COUNT toward the allocation limit. Policy H.4.4 condition 2, verbatim: 'The allocation limits specified in Condition (1) include volumes allowed to be taken under the RMA (s14(3)(b)) and permitted to be taken by rules in this Plan, and the estimated or measured volumes associated with such takes should be considered when making decisions on applications for water permits.'"
source_location: "Policy H.4.4 condition 2, p.311"
- claim: "Plan status, verbatim from the cover pages: 'The Proposed Regional Plan for Northland became operative on 27 March 2026' and the document is headed 'Regional Plan for Northland - operative in part'; the council signed the plan as operative in part on 13 October 2023."
source_location: "Cover pages, March 2026 printing"Neobiome Intelligence and regulatory relevance
There is no Northland volume threshold to report, and that is the finding. Unlike a plan that permits a stated number of cubic metres per day, Northland removes section 14(3) takes from its rules altogether. So the question of whether a community of about thirty households may take groundwater for domestic supply is not answered by a plan threshold at all. It is answered by the statutory test in section 14(3)(b) (REG_012): whether the take is for “a person’s reasonable domestic needs” and whether it has, or is likely to have, an adverse effect on the environment. Whether that exemption aggregates across many households is an interpretation, not statutory text.
Where the exemption does not reach, the take is discretionary. Rule C.5.1.12 makes any take not covered by the exemption or another rule a discretionary activity, which is a full consent assessment rather than a bounded one.
The allocation limits bite even on takes that need no consent. Policy H.4.4 condition 2 is the significant provision for a self-sufficiency assessment: volumes taken under the section 14(3)(b) exemption count against the aquifer allocation limit and must be considered when deciding other applications. So an exempt community take is not free of allocation consequences, it simply does not require its own consent. In a catchment approaching its limit, exempt domestic demand reduces the headroom available to everyone.
Allocation limits are recharge-based, so they are site-specific. Ten percent of average annual recharge for a coastal aquifer and 35 percent for other aquifers means the answer for any given site depends on which aquifer it sits over and what that aquifer’s recharge is. There is no single regional number.
The aggregation question is open, and Northland makes that unavoidable. Because the plan defers entirely to section 14(3), the whole answer for a community domestic supply turns on whether one exemption for “a person’s reasonable domestic needs” can cover many households sharing a bore. No plan provision, and no statutory text, resolves it. The reading applied elsewhere in this corpus, that the exemption does not aggregate, is a defensible construction rather than settled law, and should be reported as an interpretation. REG_012 records the same caution against the statute.
Notes
data_quality: verified. Section C.5.1 and Policy H.4.4 were read directly via pdftotext -layout and every provision above is quoted verbatim from the retrieved file.
⚠ Currency. The document is titled “operative in part”. The cover records an operative-in-part signing on 13 October 2023 and states that the Proposed Regional Plan became operative on 27 March 2026. Northland’s rules have been becoming operative piecemeal as Environment Court appeals resolve, so a rule cited from this printing should be restated as at the printing date rather than described as settled law.
⚠ Aupouri Aquifer limits not extracted. Table 32 sets the Aupouri sub-aquifer allocation limits in cubic metres per year and has not been read into this page.
⚠ Allocation state is published, but only as indicative maps. The council publishes indicative water-quantity allocation maps as two interactive applications rather than a table, and states their limits directly: the groundwater maps “does include an estimate of takes for stock drinking water and domestic purposes under Section 14(3)(b) of the RMA”, which corroborates Policy H.4.4 condition 2 from operational practice; the surface-water maps exclude both section 14(3)(b) takes and permitted takes because “the council does not have records of permitted activity takes at specific locations”, so “the actual amount of water that is allocated to be taken may exceed what is displayed”. The council also states that “the ‘thatched’ areas show where surface water is fully allocated. Since over allocation is prohibited, new groundwater takes in these areas that would affect surface water flows cannot be granted.” A per-site answer therefore requires a coordinate lookup against a map that is expressly indicative, not a citable static figure. The underlying layer has since been queried directly and is held as RD_038, which supplies the allocation state for all 63 delineated units.
Research targets
Research gaps
- Aquifer-specific allocation state for Northland, that is which aquifers are at or near their Policy H.4.4 limit, to convert the recharge-percentage rule into a site answer.
Connections
Links to
Referenced by
Sources (1): RD_038