Direct referral hearings

What is a direct referral hearing?

Sometimes an application is referred directly to the Environment Court, without a council hearing first.

Direct referral hearings typically address larger, more complex applications.

Under the Resource Management Act, you can ask for the following application types to be referred to the Environment Court:

• Notified resource consents
• Notices of requirement
• Heritage order applications.

Reasons for direct referrals

Direct referrals save time and reduce costs for applicants and submitters.

Find out more about the direct referral process on the Quality Planning website.