Kāpiti Coast District Council declares wāhi tapu status for Kārewarewa urupā

Tamati Place, in Waikanae Beach, which is part of the Karewarewa urupa. Photo / David Haxton

Kāpiti Coast District Council has endorsed an independent hearing panel’s recommendation that an area in Waikanae Beach is wāhi tapu.

After the Waitangi Tribunal’s Kārewarewa urupā report in 2020, the council proposed, through its District Plan Change 2 process, to schedule the urupā, near Waimanu Lagoon, as wāhi tapu (sacred site).

This month, the council supported the position of Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai that the site was a urupā and wāhi tapu after receiving the panel’s recommendation as part of the plan change.

The Kārewarewa urupa block is an eight-hectare area that has importance to iwi, especially Ātiawa ki Whakarongotai, which have believed since at least 1839 that it’s a place where ancestors are buried, as well the dead from the Battle of Kūititangā.

Part of the panel’s report noted that the tribunal said “the traditional, historical and archaeological evidence is clear that this block was an urupā. We have no doubts on that point.”

The Waikanae Land Company bought the land in the 1960s and gained authority from the Horowhenua County Council for residential development, including having the site’s Māori cemetery designation lifted, despite objections from iwi.

Various houses and streets have been built on the land, but not all of it, especially after skeletal remains were discovered in the 2000s and more work to develop the land was undertaken.

Part of the Kārewarewa urupā. Photo / David Haxton

The panel also noted that the tribunal “found a continuous desecration of the Kārewarewa urupā block since the early 1960s, enabled by the failure of the Crown and its surrogates to protect the cultural and spiritual values pertaining to the Kārewarewa urupā and its environs. The Crown made significant concessions about its failures.”

Dr Mahina-a-rangi Baker said the council’s decision to reinstate wāhi tapu protections on the urupā, for the first time in 53 years, was “a significant achievement for our iwi, and a credit to the legacy of many tūpuna over generations, advocating for the protection of Kārewarewa urupā”.

But Baker noted the Waikanae Land Company had filed court proceedings to develop part of the remaining land as well as review the panel’s jurisdiction to make the wāhi tapu recommendation.

The company had contested the values attributable to the land because human remains had been found in only a small area of the block.

“We will continue to prepare for these future hearings, and to explore options in pursuit of the ultimate goal of having the urupā protected from development in perpetuity,” Baker said.

The plan change, in regards to the wāhi tapu status, becomes operative from Friday.