Matauri Bay subdivision approval gives $6m reprieve

Dover Samuels says the 14ha development will create income and long-term opportunities. Picture / Michael Cunningham

Approval for a 139-section subdivision on coastal land at Matauri Bay in the Far North is a financial lifeline for the site's debt-burdened Maori owners.

The 14ha residential development and the income it will generate will enable the Matauri X Incorporation to refinance its $6 million debt.

Court-appointed Matauri X interim administrator Kevin Gillespie said the development had obtained consents from Far North District Council and the Northland Regional Council.

"We've got a new lender lined up," he said. "They just need now to review the consent conditions."

He would not identify the new lender.

Matauri Bay Properties, a joint venture company involving Matauri X and Blue Water Eco Developments, has been given consent to subdivide and develop a residential subdivision on incorporation land about 500m back from the beachfront.

The sections, ranging in size from about 1100 sq m to 1400 sq m, are subject to a 52-year lease agreement with the joint venture company.

The incorporation and its 430 shareholders, who own the 549ha Matauri X block of prime coastal land at Matauri Bay, had faced an uncertain financial future and the likely forced sale of their land because of the debt owed to Bridgecorp Finance and Instant Funding.

This resulted from loan defaults after the incorporation's investment in a Whakatane mineral water bottling company, Eternal Waters, was lost when the company went into receivership.

Matauri X could not repay money it had borrowed from Bridgecorp and Instant Finance in 2001 and debts mounted as it defaulted on its loans.

Tribal land at Matauri Bay was mortgaged as security on the loans, but this was done without the consent or knowledge of most of the incorporation's shareholders.

Instant Finance became a first priority mortgage holder over prime land in the main Matauri X block.

The consents issued for the development cover vehicle access and private roadways, a new public road to be vested in the Far North Council, provision for 100-plus cars in a public carpark and legal public access to the beach foreshore.

A sewage treatment system will be built, 26ha of native forest will be protected through covenants, public open spaces will be set aside, and beach sand dunes will be restored.

The regional council is allowing up to 40,000 cu m of earthworks, including an upgrade of the main Matauri Bay road.

In their joint decision, the two councils said the proposal arose from "a situation that occurred as a result of mismanagement of equity in Matauri X land ...

"It is largely driven by the economic needs of the landowners to avoid the loss of ancestral land through a forced sale."

Te Tai Tokerau list MP Dover Samuels, a Matauri Bay landowner and the incorporation's biggest individual shareholder, said there was no option but to develop and use the land.

"The days of having land returning no economic benefits are over, he said.

"We have to face that we have a debt the shareholders can't pay out of their own pockets."

Mr Samuels said Matauri Bay would soon not be the tranquil bay it used to be, but the development would create income and give shareholders long-term opportunities.