Visual Assessment

Visual Assessment

Visual Assessment for Resource Consent

As part of the Resource Consent process, landscape architects are often required to prepare landscape and visual assessments.  These detail the potential effects of a proposal on the landscape, on visual amenity and when required, on the natural character of the coastal environment.  A landscape assessment may be required as part of a subdivision consent or a land use consent application.

In addition, as an element of the planning process, District or Regional planning authorities may also include conditions of consent that require the preparation of landscape planting plans by a Registered Landscape Architect.

The practice has had extensive experience in the preparation of such assessments and the presentation of these at Resource Consent Hearings, or at the Environment Court.  The scale of projects ranges from the assessment of individual structures such as dwellings, or telecommunications facilities such as cellular monopoles, through to larger developments including subdivisions, power stations, quarries, sand extraction projects, bridges, jetties, marinas, wharfs, roading and rail projects.

Simon Cocker Landscape Architecture is regularly engaged by Councils – including Auckland Council, Kaipara Council, Whangarei District Council and Far North District Council – to undertake peer reviews of visual assessments.