May 25, 2020
Golf club purchase restores tribal estate
Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki has teamed up with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to buy the Royal Auckland Golf Club course near Middlemore.
Together they plan to develop 565 housing units and mixed use facilities.
The head of its commercial arm, James Brown, says the iwi considers it stolen land.
"Largely the whole of south Auckland was in this thing called the Fairburn Purchase. Our kaumātua and kuia when I was a little kid used to call it muru whenua as opposed to a raupatu so the cultural and historical significance, as it is to other tribes, is part of our DNA," he says.
Mr Brown says Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki hopes many of its own people will be able to afford homes in the development.
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