Iwi leaders are contemplating entering an expected high-interest sales market with the possibility of buying Kahurānaki Station and its ancestral maunga to keep the 1156ha property in Hawke’s Bay hands.
The hopes have been revealed by Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Inc (NKII) chair Bayden Barber who says the iwi has beencontacted by the real estate agency marketing the station, which is listed on the Hastings District Plan as an Outstanding Natural Landscape Area due to its high cultural importance to ngā Hapū me ngā marae o Ngāti Kahungunu.
Plans to sell the property by tender closing on April 28 were revealed last week and Barber said on Tuesday he had met with treaty post settlement governance entity (PSGE) Tamatea Pōkai Whenua Settlement Trust (TPW) which would “lead the process” about due diligence and any consideration of a tender, and NKII is “happy” to work with the trust ”around a plan”.
On a clear day, Kahurānaki affords views from the coast in the east and north, to Ruapehu, in the Central North Island. Photo / Supplied
Tamatea Pōkai Whenua is the PSGE for Heretaunga Tamatea, established to receive redress negotiated by He Toa Takitini in settlement of the historical Treaty grievances of Heretaunga Tamatea against the Crown, for which a deed was signed in 2015, with an act of Parliament passed three years later.
Kahurānaki, in the middle, flanked by Te Mata Peak, left, and Mt Erin on a winter's day in Hawke's Bay. Photo / Paul Taylor
“This is an open-market tender process,” he said. “As you can appreciate, a station like Kahurānaki is likely to be highly prized and will require full due diligence across numerous factors.”
The station has been in the Greenwood family for at least six generations over a century, and spokesperson Richard Gilbertson said last week family succession issues, which are widespread among long-time farming families throughout New Zealand, mean it is time for someone else “to have a go.”
In another Facebook post, iwi deputy-chair Thompson Hokianga, who is challenging Barber for the top role at the triennial iwi elections, said the options with the tender process ”requires a multi-level collaborative approach, essentially not as an Iwi or Post Settlement entity trickling down but the hapū pushing up, so that it is informed, supported and driven by the people who circumnavigate our Maunga”.
Iwi have made at least one approach in the past, but former NKII chair Ngahiwi Tomoana said while the Greenwood family was amenable to the approach the Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Asset Holding Company had recently (in 2013) completed the purchase of 3680ha station Tautane, near Herbertville, in the coastal extremes of the Tararua District.
That property had also been in the hands of one family (the Herberts) for more than a century.
Rural real estate agent Duncan McKinnon said there was already strong interest in the Kahurānaki tendering process, and confirmed there had been contact with both NKII and TPW.
The latter is understood to have had a regular meeting on Tuesday night, although its chair was unable to be contacted by Hawke’s Bay Today by late-morning on Wednesday.
The tender process means the highest offer is necessarily that which is accepted.
Another major Central Hawke’s Bay property, the 1948ha Motere Station, was sold late last year, after also being in one family for more than a century.
Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 52 years of journalism experience, 42 of them in Hawke’s Bay, in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.
