Listen Now: 
Port Nicholson Settlement Trust is seeking approval from its members to sell its major asset and start over.
The trust wants to sell the former defence base at Shelly Bay to developer Ian Cassells’ Wellington Company, who currently has a five-year lease on the site.
Chair Neville Baker says that will allow the trust to look at other opportunities, such as buying the neighbouring former Mount Crawford prison site.
It is negotiating to buy Wellington Railway Station, and it wants to do more with rights it has to buy and lease back crown properties.
It also has right of first refusal for surplus crown land around the capital.
The trust bought Shelly Bay in 2009 for about $13 million but its hopes of developing the run-down base in partnership with filmmaker Sir Peter Jackson fell through almost immediately.
The property became a drain on its resources until it was leased to The Wellington Company.
The land is now valued at $9.85 million, and the offer on the table is above that.
The Wellington Company is also offering the trust an ongoing partnership, a percentage share of profits, first right of purchase of all residential and commercial property, co-operation on all contract opportunities and respect for trust names and cultural attachment.
Mr Cassells has a 10-year plan to transform the transform the former air force base into a residential, artistic and recreational enclave similar to Sausalito across the harbour from San Francisco.
The Port Nicholson Settlement Trust has been going through a major overhaul as it tries to halt the slide in the value of its treaty settlement.
According to its 2015 annual report, at the start of the year total assets were valued at $19 million, compared with a book value of $31 million in March 2011.
It said in its first four years the trust was spending $3 million a year on operations but getting less than $1 million a year in revenue from its investments.
Since forming an audit and risk committee in October 2013 it trimmed the deficit to $563,763 last year and intends to break even this year.
In August it put its commercial assets under a new independent company, Taranaki Whanui Ltd, chaired by Toa Pomare and including experienced professional directors Peter Allport, Bryan Jackson and Jamie Tuuta.
Consultation meetings with Taranaki Whanui members about the Shelly Bay offer will be held at the Copthorne Hotel, New Plymouth on January 20 and Waiwhetu Marae on January 27, with the result of the vote announced at a special general meeting at Pipitea Marae in Wellington on the evening of February 9.
Copyright © 2016, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com
RELATED NEWS
