Sandra Hazlehurst: Restored Keirunga Homestead nice, rebuilt Hastings district better

Hastings district councillor Michael Fowler articulates the history of Keirunga Homestead, watched by Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst, centre. Photo / Paul Taylor

The $400,000 refurbishment of Havelock North’s Keirunga Homestead isn’t an expensive nice-to-have in a district still recovering from the ravages of Cyclone Gabrielle.

Hastings ratepayers supplied the funding for items such as wheelchair access, new kitchen and toilet facilities, heat pumps, lighting and sprinklers for the historic homestead built in 1907 and sold to the then-Havelock North Borough Council in 1964.

Run by the Keirunga Gardens Society, the homestead and adjacent cottage are available for public bookings.

“This was budgeted in the 2021 budget. These projects take a couple of years and we’re delighted that this went through the annual plan process back in 2021 because our whole focus and priorities have changed post-Cyclone Gabrielle,” Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst said.

“Our investment now will be in our wider district recovering and our roads and bridges to make sure we have full access restored to our district.

“Projects like these [homestead renovations] are beautiful to do, but when something comes along like Cyclone Gabrielle we have to reprioritise.”

It’s almost a year since the cyclone hit and Hazlehurst says Hastings District Council is doing all it can to provide closure and relief to those continuing to deal with its effects.

“There are many in our community going through the voluntary buy-out process and life is very, very challenging still with uncertainty of where their future takes them and how the buy-out process is going to work for them,” Hazlehurst said.

“It’s amazing to see our horticulture industry replanting and reinvesting in our economy, but there is still a lot of hurt and anxiety out there and, as we come to one year on, we can be very proud that we have installed 10 temporary bridges, we are now working on two replacement bridges - that’s Puketapu and Matapiro - we’ve fixed 500 out of 800 culverts and restored hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of roads.

“We’ve got a long way to go and this whole recovery’s going to take five to seven years and the estimated cost is $800 million.

“How are we going to afford that? Well, we’ve started our conversations with Recovery Minister [Mark] Mitchell and the Prime Minister [Christopher Luxon]. It’s going be step-by-step and we can’t expect our ratepayers to be funding all of this.

“We have to manage that, reprioritise what has to be done and what’s really important for our community.

“At the moment our big focus is making sure the 80 or 90 homeowners get the buy-out that they need [of] 100 per cent of market value on the 2022 valuation and they can get on with their lives.”

Hazlehurst anticipated the buy-out process will be completed by June.