Looking at increasing amounts of material the answer would be yes
As I have submitted to various aspects of the Proposed Auckland Unitary Plan I am keeping an eye on what is happening with the Panel that is overseeing the hearings part of the entire process.
Currently I have received two notifications alerting me that two topic points (044 Transport Rules and Others (so parking) and 051-054 (Centre Zones and their relative controls) are coming up to the main Hearings. Those who are part of the Unitary Plan processes will know that you have Pre Hearings, Mediation then the hearings themselves. And as expected there is some homework to do prior such as getting your evidence, rebuttal evidence, and checking the Council mark up version done before hand.
The issue? The amount of homework and the complexity around getting that homework ready for the Mediation and Main Hearings for lay or private individual submitters like myself, who lack the time and dedicated resource in comparison to lobby groups and corporations to get the material ready to make our submission presentations anything meaningful.
Think I am making this up?
Then read this from a private submitter in relation to Topics 044 and 051:
Health issues aside (as that would not help any person) I can understand the situation around the complexity of the Unitary Plan Processes. Having to start assembling my own material for the two respective topics it has dawned on me the amount of time and resource it takes to put everything together. That is if I want to make my submission points relative and heard to rather than “considered.”
So what can be done about it?
Let me know your thoughts first. I will tomorrow give some ideas on how the situation could be made easier .
Unitary Plan Submission
Talking Southern Auckland 
Much of the complexity comes from the centralised way the whole planning process is being driven. Instead of working WITH communities and ratepayers in a decentralised coordinated fashion and delegating decision making and management of service delivery on all reasonable local functions and activities, AC is trying to control and run a diverse political region on a functional basis from a single central hub. We need a change in governance and structure. With allowance for the difference in size and having a significant central urban city area, AC can learn much from experiences such as that of the Thames and Coromandel District Council, ably described in this presentation to the 2014 LGNZ Conference by CEO David Hammond.