June 15, 2015
Iwi eyes Stonefield home
An Ihumatao community leader says the village needs to work with developers rather than continue fighting them.
A group Save Our Unique Landscape has formed to oppose a special housing area on 32 hectares of farmland on the edge of the Otuataua Stonefields.
But Te Warena Taua, the chair of Makaurau Marae Maori Trust Board, has already challenged Fletcher Residential in the courts and lost.
He says he changed tack, getting the company to cut the development from 520 homes to 480 and he’s now looking at ways mana whenua can afford to buy some of the homes.
"It will take seven years for the end of Oruarangi Rd, which meets up with Ihumatao, before they get anywhere near us. By that time it would give our people enough time to save for these homes, but they have gone beyond that. They have changed the roading system, the ways the plans have been set out, so we have been able to have quite a bit of input on that development,," he says.
Te Warena Taua says the protest group doesn’t have a lot of support among the area’s Maori.
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