The start of a new year has come and gone, along with almost all of my New Year’s resolutions. That simple truth reminds me how even the best intentions eventually wither in the shadow of opportunity.
As submissions close on the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill, I find myself reflecting on the likelihood that they will, in time, suffer the same fate as the RMA before them. We do not know when that will be, but history suggests that reform is rarely the final chapter.
“Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
— Carl Jung
When a new project lands in the company inbox, it spreads around the office like wildfire. Everyone wants to contribute to the proposal. The scope is confirmed, the programme carefully mapped out, and the budget calculated. In the end, it is usually not so different from the last project, or one from the year before. We know how to do it — we have done it all before. The same habits and tactics take over, and the project moves through a familiar process.
Yet those first few hours and days are exhilarating. They are filled with:
- meeting new people
- gaining new knowledge
- solving new problems
New beginnings are full of energy and optimism precisely because they feel unexpected and action-oriented.
The Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill are much the same. They appear new, but they are not new in the truest sense. They are replacements. Truly new things have no precedent. Doing the same thing in a different way is not the same as doing something new.
This is the shadow Jung describes. New legislation carries its own shadow. The less consciously we embody the lessons of the past in our practice, the darker and denser the future becomes. Ironically, reductions in red tape often construct a more efficient iron cage.
“The care for external goods should only lie on the shoulders of the ‘saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside at any moment.’ But fate decreed that the cloak should become an iron cage.”
— Max Weber
At Infill, we focus on doing new things, not simply different things. Legislative cycles come and go. Our approach to land development is grounded in first principles, not passing frameworks. If you want to think beyond compliance and toward possibility, come and talk to us.
