Hopes Te Ārai development will still go ahead after exemption dropped from Overseas Investment bill

Te Arai beach, south of Mangawhai. Photo / Greg Bowker

A hapū behind a housing development in Northland hopes the Government can still fix a bill so that it will be able to push ahead, with its iwi and commercial partners, with its plans.

Te Uri o Hau says its wellbeing depends on the success of the development at Te Ārai near Mangawhai.

"Te Uri o Hau got a relatively small Treaty settlement from the Crown. The commercial forest we purchased at Te Ārai as part of our redress was by far and away our biggest commercial asset," said Georgina Connelly, chairwoman of Te Uri o Hau Settlement Trust.

"As our public submission makes clear, Te Uri o Hau does not have the luxury of a large, diversified asset base. The success of our development is crucial to Te Uri o Hau's future wellbeing."

Te Ārai North Precinct and Te Ārai South Precinct in the north and south forest at Te Ārai are the joint ventures of Te Uri o Hau and Ngāti Manuhiri iwi, together with well-known developer John Darby of Darby Partners.

US billionaire businessman Ric Kayne, who developed the Tara Iti golf course on land he purchased from Te Uri o Hau, is also involved in the venture.

Speaker Trevor Mallard last week ordered an exemption be removed from the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill which would have made the controversial 106-house luxury development more attractive to wealthy overseas buyers.

Mallard's ruling acknowledged that the Labour-chaired finance and expenditure committee which recommended the exemption in its report to Parliament, had been "motivated by a desire to assist and be fair to the landowner".

Connelly said the hapū never asked for a specific exemption for itself.

"We suggested that commercial Treaty redress land that had been through a comprehensive land management plan with council could be granted a standing consent. There was considerable sympathy and we are grateful the select committee and Government tried to fix it. We hope they still can," she said.

"Both forests have got to the point of being very successful after years of consultation and negotiation with the community and Auckland Council. Both developments involve compromises, and the gifting of hundreds of hectares to public coastal reserve. And the economics of both developments is now threatened by the [Overseas Investment Amendment] bill."

Associate Finance Minister David Parker said last week that the exemption from consent provisions in the bill was intended to benefit the hapū and iwi involved.

"The local iwi felt aggrieved that the asset they got in a Treaty settlement was being devalued by this particular piece of legislation," he told RNZ.

"There's a balance to be struck here. You can't give a compensatory asset to iwi in a Treaty settlement and then take the value off them. That is a Treaty breach. On the other hand, it's also true that all land becomes subject to the laws of the land, including Treaty land."