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The Tuwharetoa Settlement Trust has enlisted other Tuwharetoa entities to help it buy 8500 hectares of Crown land beside the Rangipo prison in the central North Island.
Trust chair Dylan Tahau says the deal has taken a year to put together and involves two major forestry trusts, three farm trusts, and a collective hapu entity.
The block includes several important wahi tapu sites, as well as stretches of the Waiotaka and Tongariro rivers.
Buying the property and leasing back some of it to Corrections is a major benefit for Tuwharetoa, and will support its economic, social and cultural development.
The deal ends the Tuwharetoa Deferred Settlement Process, which was part of the 2008 Central North Island Treaty Settlement.
Because the trust did not have enough cash from the settlement to buy all the properties available, it enlisted other trusts to help with the deferred settlement process.
Through its Tuwharetoa Property Investment Limited Partnership also purchased the land under nine schools in Taupo, other Corrections property, and the Taupo Courthouse, making the iwi one of the largest landowners in the Taupo township.
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