November 13, 2020
Council vote unlock opportunity for Taranaki Whanui
A Wellington city councillor says a vote in favour of a development at Shelly Bay was about showing good faith to mana whenua and to the wider business community.
Jill Day, who heads the council’s Māori portfolio, says the decision to sell and lease land to the joint venture formed by Port Nicholson Block Settlement Trust and developer The Wellington Company was actually made in 2017, and this week’s vote was to confirm the key terms and conditions for the transfer.
The addition of a small area of council land around the former defence base will ensure there is public space within the 35-home development.
She says Trustees explained that much of the Taranaki Whānui Settlement had been tied up in the land, and the deal it had struck with the Wellington Company was essential to its future.
"And so by releasing the financial burden of that piece of land they have managed to buy quite a number of significant blocks in our city through the (right of first refusal) process so for them they have had to look at it in a very commercially savvy way to make sure they are building something for their uri, because it is very hard to be locked into one piece of land with very little financial opportunity," Ms Day says.
While Mau Whenua opponents of the deal say the land has great significance to the iwi and should not be sold, the council was advised it was not a former occupation site and did not form part of the cultural redress in the settlement.
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