A supporter for returning 11 Mission St to Maori in the Tauranga City Council chambers. Photo / George Novak
A supporter for returning 11 Mission St to Maori in the Tauranga City Council chambers. Photo / George Novak
COMMENT
What a mess the 11 Mission St process has been.
Actually, it's been a cascade of messes that culminated in a mightily mucky meeting of Tauranga City Council on Tuesday.
It took four rounds of voting - including one to take back a previous vote - tosettle on a way forward that was essentially a capitulation to their own division.
Unable muster a majority for giving the land to either the Elms Foundation or the Ōtamataha Trust - elected members cobbled together a compromise: A lease or gift to a new entity representing both interested parties.
Will it be a lease or a gift? On what terms? How will the new entity work in the long term? Will it strengthen or fracture the relationship between trust and foundation? What new complications might arise?
But that seems like it will be the next lot's problem now. While we await their election, let's look back at the messes that came before.
Most agree the council bought this section for the Elms' benefit - to shoo residential development from its boundaries and give it room to grow.
There is disagreement, however, on whether the council promised to hand the land on to the Elms.
Plenty believed the promise was implicit in the 2006 purchase and in the explicitly expressed intentions of leaders of the time.
Others say there was never a formal promise and time moved on, leaving the council open to look at other options such as that presented by the trust.
For a relatively small slice of land, 11 Mission St has caused a lot of consternation. Image / Tauranga City Council
The Elms' preference mess
The Elms Foundation had three positions, all communicated to the council.
It was neutral on the proposal to give the land to the trust. Counting on the council for funding, it did not want to be seen trying to influence the matter.
At the same time, it's first preference was to be gifted the land directly. Not an unreasonable position to hold after more than a decade of trying to secure the section.
Its second preference was for the land to be gifted to the trust, with a long-term lease back to the Elms.
The Elms was in an awkward spot for sure but, in the end, I think sitting on the fence - sort of - caused unnecessary confusion.
The missing information mess
The Elms' multiple positions were conveyed to elected members and staff multiple times.
But on the day the council was due to make a final call, council staff represented only one view: Neutral.
I think they were trying to stay true to the Elms' wish not to influence the outcome.
But they should have ditched that plan when it became clear in the meeting the decision was hinging on the swing vote of councillor Rick Curach, who just wanted to know what the Elms really wanted.
He voted to give the land to the trust conditional on the Elms' endorsement.
It was a bad look when the preferences came out after the meeting. Curach said he would have voted differently. Calls to revoke the decision began immediately.
The endorsement was given but the damage had already been done, and for little gain.
The history mess
Historians - armchair and otherwise - had a field day with this issue.
Goings on at the Ōtamataha Pā more than 100 years ago were up for debate, from the nature of land transfers to the thoughts and intentions in Archdeacon Brown's head.
No one took it further than Councillor John Robson, who felt his own research sufficient to repeatedly publicly challenge the conclusions of two historians.
History deserves challenging as much as any other academic discipline but it got silly.
Spare me also Councillor Max Mason imploring his colleagues to ask themselves, what would Brown do?
Let's not.
We can't ignore the messy past of Mission St, but I hope the next lot of decision-makers focus on getting this right for the future.
