New planning bills would strip general urban-tree protections, advocates warn

Two bills currently before Parliament — the Planning Bill and the Spatial Environment Bill — would narrow urban-tree protection to only those trees with significant historic heritage value, according to an environment select committee report.

The bills have passed their second reading and are expected to become law before the next election. They form part of the government's plan to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (the RMA), the main law governing how land is used and developed in New Zealand. The government announced the replacement in December 2025, building on work that began in February 2021 when it first said it would repeal and replace the RMA based on a review of the system (Ministry for the Environment).

The select committee report said the bills "intend to move away from individually listing urban trees for protection, in favour of only demarking trees with significant historic heritage value." The Tree Council's August 2026 media release, titled "No More Urban Trees," stated that protection of urban trees other than notable trees with historic heritage is out of scope of the proposed legislation (Tree Council).

Tree Council chair Sean Freeman said the new bills could mean there were almost no trees in New Zealand's cities within a decade. Andrew Jenks of the Otara Waterways and Lake Trust, who has been planting trees at the Te Ara Rata stream in Māngere, Auckland, for the past 20 years, warned that "many, many more trees will disappear" under the replacement legislation (RNZ).

Minister for RMA reform Chris Bishop said trees with significant heritage value would continue to be protected under the new system. The Ministry for the Environment's April 2025 update quoted Bishop as saying replacing the RMA will enable economic growth and make it easier to plan for and deliver infrastructure and housing (Ministry for the Environment).

The bills also introduce a mechanism called "regulatory relief," which requires councils to compensate property owners who are significantly affected by planning rules. The Ministry for the Environment's May 2024 update outlined this as part of a broader reform approach based on the enjoyment of property rights (Ministry for the Environment).

The impact would be unevenly felt across the country. South Auckland has the lowest level of tree canopy in the city, with the Māngere-Otahuhu area at 9 percent compared to the Auckland average of 20 percent. Zane Wedding, a Māngere arborist and tree advocate, said many trees in South Auckland had been cut down since general tree protections were removed from the RMA in 2015.

Auckland Council spokesperson Celia Davison said the council's submission on the bill recommended notable trees remain protected, but the select committee supported moving away from urban tree protection. Tree and environmental groups united over the RMA reforms in August 2026, saying the proposed changes could significantly weaken protection for New Zealand's urban trees (Scoop).

A January 2026 DLA Piper analysis noted the closing date for public submissions had already passed and that the bills were intended to repeal and replace the RMA by mid-2026 (DLA Piper). The Environment Select Committee has published its final report on the Planning Bill, and the government aims to pass the bills into law in 2026 (Ministry for the Environment).

The broader context here is a shift in planning philosophy. Under the RMA, councils could list and protect individual urban trees. The replacement system narrows that to heritage values alone, placing tree protection decisions within a property-rights-based regime that includes the regulatory relief mechanism. For councils already operating with thin canopy cover, the gap between the current system and the proposed one is the removal of a discretionary tool, not the introduction of a new prohibition. The Māngere-Otahuhu figure of 9 percent canopy cover gives a concrete sense of what "low" looks like on the ground, and the post-2015 experience Wedding describes suggests what happens when general protections are absent.

For those working in local government planning teams, the practical question is what, if anything, fills the space left by the removal of general urban-tree listing powers. Auckland Council's submission sought to retain notable-tree protection, but the select committee's direction is clear. Whether individual councils can design district-plan provisions that achieve canopy outcomes without the listing tool, within the constraints of the new regime, will be a matter for plan-drafting and inevitably for litigation. The bills are expected to pass before the election, leaving a narrow window for the sector to engage with the detail.