Reforms to the resource management system

Our report examines the expected costs and benefits of the reforms. Changes are currently articulated mainly as broad principles and high-level descriptions of the institutional arrangements. Much of the detail is still to be developed, and the benefits of the reforms will depend on the physical outcomes that result, eg how much will pollutant emissions reduce, housing affordability improve, or Māori engagement increase?

The report focuses on understanding the nature of costs and benefits under the different domains and how these are expected to change at the margin, eg whether increased environmental quality will yield positive net benefits. We provide an indication of the potential for benefits in different domains. The realisation of these potential benefits is dependent on the final design and implementation of the reforms.

Business Development Capacity Assessment for Dunedin City

Dunedin City Council appointed Principal Economics to provide a comprehensive assessment of the sufficiency in development capacity of business land within Dunedin to fulfils requirements of the the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD 2020), including an investigation of:

In our assessment of demand and sufficiency we identified existing businesses across New Zealand and their locational attributes including but not limited to land size, shape, access, reverse sensitivities and other market-based factors. We use industries’ revealed preferences to assess the features of land that they have determined as being suitable. This was then matched with the supply of business land in Dunedin City after applying a range of spatial analysis techniques.