Listen Now: 
Rotorua Lakes Council’s strategy committee wants the council to remove the public road designation from Tamatea Street on the eastern shore of Lake Rotoiti.
If agreed to by the full council next month, the move will allow Ngati Tamateatutahi to ask the Maori Land Court for a roadway order that would effectively return the land to its original owners.
The street is part of a larger block confiscated in 1897 to create the Rotoiti Native Township.
The township was never built, and most of the land was returned in 1923.
The council says it was a long-standing grievance of the iwi.
Today’s decision conditional on Te Tahuna Trust, which owns the land along the street, protecting existing rights of local residents and securing ongoing public access to the reserve and lakefront.
The council will cover the cost of roadway maintenance.
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