Is opposition to a hospital a sign of insanity in planning laws?

Southern Cross has been trying to expand its hospital at Brightside Rd and Gillies Ave in Auckland since 2020, Stuff reports, using properties it already owns. But the special character of the neighbourhood surrounding the hospital is the focus of a planning dispute over its expansion plan, with Eden-Epsom Residential Protection Society appealing the decision in court. “It is an indictment of our resource management system, that a hospital expansion can be tied up in the courts for two years during a pandemic,” says Dr Eric Crampton, chief economist with the New Zealand Initiative.