August 23, 2017
Council delivers on Tamarawaho promise
It’s taken almost 14 years, but Tauranga City Council is finally delivering on a promise to sell or gift land to Ngai Tamarawaho.
The $3.6 million site in Chapel St, leased to a service station, is a swap for land nearby that was on the list of treaty settlement properties which the iwi gave up so it could be used for the off ramp for the second harbour bridge.
Spokesperson Buddy Mikaere says an alternate block ended up being used for a pipeline.
He says the chapel St block has been under discussion for seven years.
"Various councils have come close, then chickened out so finally we have got the council to sit down and say ‘yes, we made you a promise, this land will go back to you, we’ll sell it back to you,’ that’s where we’ve got so far, over the first hurdle. The next hurdle is to negotiate what the terms of the settlement will be. Very pleasing for our hapu who lost most of their land in the city through the raupatu in the 1860s," Mr Mikaere says.
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