For notified resource consents, an applicant, consent holder or submitter can appeal a council resource consent decision to the Environment Court under s120(1).
If however the application was for a boundary activity (defined in s87AAB), a subdivision, or a residential activity (defined in s95A(6)), there is no right to appeal to the Environment Court on , unless the activity status of any of these application types is non-complying activity.
If multiple resource consent applications for the same activity are lodged together (known as a ‘bundled consent’, and one or more of those consents is able to be appealed, then the entire ‘bundle’ of consents can be appealed together.
Submitters on resource consents can only appeal to the Environment Court if their appeal is related to a matter that they raised (excluding any part of their submission that may have been struck out).
The appeal must be made in the prescribed form (Form 34) and must state the reasons for the appeal, the relief sought and state any matters required by the regulations. The appeal must be received by the Environment Court within 15 working days of receiving the Council's decision.
A copy of the notice of appeal must be served on the council, any submitter and applicant (as appropriate) except for the appellant within five working days of the notice being lodged with the Court.
The Environment Court may order a party to an appeal to give security for costs prior to the proceedings. Where an appeal is not successful, the appellant may be awarded costs against them to pay for the costs of the defendant having to represent their case to the Court.
Costs can be awarded by the Environment Court regardless of whether security of costs was required prior to the commencement of proceedings (s285).
See the Ministry's booklet The Environment Court: Awarding and Securing Costs for more information.
