It's now a lot quicker and easier to find Environment Canterbury plan provisions that apply to your property. You can view most of our plans and bylaws using our new ePlan(external link) tool, which makes them easier to access. The links at the bottom of this page will open ePlan at the contents page of the plan you want to see, or you can browse the plans in the ePlan tool.
Search plan
The ePlan tool presents all of our operative plans in an easy to use, modern, map-based format.
Search property
Simply type in your address and the ePlan tool will automatically pull out what you need to know.
The ePlan tool explained
The ePlan tool gives you the option to view an entire plan or only the parts of plans that are relevant to an individual property. It also offers information about any plan changes that apply to a particular site and the ability to select defined words to see their legal meaning. You can even create a ‘Property Report’ with area-specific plan provisions that apply to a site, such as hazard areas or heritage features.
ePlan Help Guide
What is an ePlan?
ePlans are interactive electronic plans that are now in common use by councils around the country to deliver resource management plans online. The online format makes planning documents easily accessible, easy to update and reduces the need for printed copies. It also allows people to make online submissions on proposed plans – see more below.
What can ePlan do and how do you use it?
ePlan gives you complete access to Environment Canterbury Regional Plans and Bylaws. There is a lot more functionality than a basic PDF and makes navigating the plans much easier.
The main features are:
- Links to particular provisions
Links to provisions appear as blue text. Clicking on these will take you straight to the particular part of the plan you are looking for.
- Links to map features and external web pages
Links to map features and external web pages also appear in blue text. Clicking on these takes you to a new page.
Map links take you to the ePlan map viewer and load the map feature you clicked on. Some features will auto zoom while others may require you to zoom in manually to view. You can also zoom into a particular property, or use Property Search to check whether the relevant feature is mapped to any particular address or property.
For example, clicking on the archaeological sites link opens the feature below in the ePlan map viewer. You can return to the plan by clicking ‘Back’ on your web browser.
- Links to definitions
Links to definitions appear with a dotted underline. Clicking on these links opens the definition panel on the left-hand side of the viewer:
Printing/creating a PDF
Clicking on the Print icon at the top of the page creates a PDF of the current section of the plan you are viewing. This can then be saved, shared as an attachment or printed.
Sharing plan content
Whenever you view a new section of a plan in ePlan, the URL in your web address bar will change. You can then use this URL to share the section of a plan you are viewing. To share, copy and paste the URL/s into an email, or you can download the full plan as a PDF and share the attachment.
Viewing plan changes
You can select proposed plan changes from the menu pane on the left side of the viewer:
Clicking on "Select' will display a current list of plan changes:
Once you have selected a plan change, the relevant plan will display with those parts of the plan affected by the proposed change highlighted with an orange background:
Comparing plans
The Compare function allows you to view two versions of a plan in one window. If a plan is currently affected by a plan change, you can use this function to compare the operative and proposed versions.
Using the property search
You can find out which regional plans and mapped planning features are relevant to your property by using the property search function.
Once you have searched for an address the map viewer will zoom to that property. You can scroll down the left-hand side menu to view a list of the mapped planning features associated with that property.
Clicking on the map icon next to the mapped feature will toggle on and off the associated GIS layer. These can also be turned on and off using the Map Tools menu box on the right-hand side of the viewer.
Clicking on the Property list icon opens the specific Regional Plans & Chapters in the left-hand side menu and it will show you the list of regional plans and planning provisions that apply to the selected property. Please note that this list of plans and provisions is a subset of the full resource management plans. It is recommended that you read the full plans to check what planning provisions apply to any proposed activity.
Making a submission
Soon you will be able to use ePlan to make electronic submissions. When this functionality becomes available we will add details on how to make online submissions using ePlan.
More information and help
For more information on how our regional plans, strategies and bylaws are developed, and background information relating to each, visit our plans, strategies and bylaws page.
Where do I go for help?
For more help with our ePlan, Plans, Strategies and Bylaws, please Contact Us.
For more help on ePlan, please contact Customer Services on 0800 324 636.