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RNZ News
05-08-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
'Very dangerous': Waipiro marina fast-tracked
Local iwi and hapū Ngāti Kuta, Patukeha and Ngāti Hine are against a fast-tracked Waipiro Marina Project. Photo: supplied / Jay Howell The Bay of Islands community is shocked that a fast-tracked marina proposal will progress to the next stage. The approval on Monday by Minister of Infrastructure Chris Bishop comes with no support from local iwi and hapū Ngāti Kuta, Patukeha, and Ngāti Hine. "We are deeply concerned and do not understand how the minister could disregard the united oppositon to this proposal from across the district," Kohu Hakaraia of Patukeha hapū said. In a statement, a spokesperson for Bishop said: "The Minister referred the Waipiro Bay Marina project into the Fast-track process as he is satisfied the project would have significant regional or national benefits." Hakaraia said they rejected the claim the marina was regionally or nationally significant. The proposed build of a commercial marina will offer berthage for 200-250 recreational boating vessels with 14 spaces for 50-metre superyachts. The cost of each berth depends on the vessel size - a 10-20m slot would cost between $80,000 - $640,000 while a 20-30m berth could be priced up to $1.2 million. A public boat ramp, a parking lot, fuelling services, and hospitality and retail venues would also be constructed on reclaimed seabed with sand dredging used during construction and for maintanence. It is estimated to bring an economic impact of $177.9 to $218.8 million in value-added GDP and generate just under 150 full time jobs in construction, operations, and boat maintenance over a 30-year period. The proposed plan for up to 250 boating vessels Photo: supplied Those opposing the Waipiro Marina Project have called for transparency and accountability from the two companies - Hopper Developments and Azuma Property - and hoped the decision would go back to a Resource Management Act process. "As hapū and community, we feel that our voices have not been adequately heard," Hakaraia said. Both companies did not respond to requests for comment. An online petition has rallied 14,600 signatures disagreeing with the use of fast-track legislation for the site and Far North Mayor Moko Tepania had also pledged to write a personal letter . There has also been a stern no from boaties. Russell Boating Club members voted at their AGM in June to oppose use of the Fast Track Approvals Act 2024 with regards to the Bay of Islands project. Life member and former commodore of the club Jay Howell said the area was a quiet, treasured destination for locals to "anchor up and enjoy getting away from the hustle and bustle of Russell and the western flank of the Bay of Islands". The proposed marina and boat ramp would overwhelm the waterways with boat traffic, he said. Plus, the Ōpua-Okiato Vehicle Ferry crossing already brought long lines of cars that worsened in the summertime, Howell said. "That ferry is going to get overwhelmed by traffic. There aren't any alternatives really. They can't add more ferries and more ferry capacity, they're already at capacity. "There's infrastructure issues that Fast-Track just overlooks all of that and allows somebody [who isn't local] to make a decision that it has big ramifications locally." Boating and tourism businesses in Ōpua and Paihia were already struggling, he noted, and the marina could take business away from existing commercial centres making businesses less economically viable. A low tide aerial shot of Waipiro Bay. Photo: supplied Environmental benefits stated in the application included the creation of new marine environments, and improved ability to monitor and manage international and domestic boats that could be carrying foreign invasive species, like seaweed pest exotic caulerpa. Howell was also a member of the Eastern Bay of Islands Preservation Society. He was concerned that the influx of a couple of hundred extra boats would cause further decline of the whale and dolphin populations - something he had noticed in the last 15 years of living there. "Private boats just follow them around and don't leave them alone, and the marina will just exacerbate that situation out here." In addition, scallop beds and mussels in the area had already been decimated due to overharvesting. Te Rāwhiti residents would lose one of their main pipi beds. "There's all these impacts that the human activities are having on the marine environment in the area, and the marina will certainly put a lot more burden on all of that," Howell said. Another member of the Preservation Society, Sandra Scowen, said the area should be protected from large-scale commercial development and preserved for future generations. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
14-05-2025
- Politics
- RNZ News
Mayor supports hapū in fight against fast-tracked marina proposal.
More than 30 people from the eastern Bay of Islands appealed to the Far North District Council for support in their battle against a fast-tracked consent for a marina at Waipiro Bay. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf Far North Mayor Moko Tepania has thrown his support behind hapū fighting a fast-tracked marina proposal, by calling for the project to be opened up to public consultation. More than 30 people from the eastern Bay of Islands turned out at a Far North District Council meeting last week, urging councillors to oppose plans for a 250-berth marina at isolated Waipiro Bay - even though the council will not have a say if it goes through the fast-track consenting process. Kaikōrero [speakers] for the affected hapū said the fast-track process deprived local communities of their voice, so they were turning to the council so their concerns could at least he heard. The concept plan for the 250-berth Waipiro Bay marina. Photo: Supplied Councillors did not pass a formal resolution - Tepania said the short timeframe made that impossible - but the mayor did pledge to write a personal letter opposing the use of fast-track legislation for the marina proposal. He also invited any councillors who shared his concerns to sign the letter. Tepania told RNZ he believed the proposal should go through the normal RMA (Resource Management Act) process. "As a council we formally opposed the fast-tracking legislation because we had significant concerns about how it would affect our partnership with iwi and hapū here in the Far North, in that it makes two classes of iwi or hapū citizenship, those who have settled and those who have not. We're seeing that now, where we've got unsettled hapū who have come to us because they've got no other avenue to get the powers-that-be to listen to them," he said. "I'm neither here nor there personally over this project, and I'm sure there are some benefits, but what I am opposed to is fast-tracking that does not follow normal resource management processes to ensure that iwi, hapū, community, council and key stakeholders can have a say, and that the process will be transparent." Patukeha kaikōrero Lamorna Ahitapu-Rogers said hapū were grateful for the mayor's support, and the chance to express their opposition despite being locked out of the process. If the marina went ahead, Te Rāwhiti residents would lose one of their main pipi beds and future options for mokopuna. "If they build this marina, and that environment is destroyed when we get our Treaty settlement, there are a lot of things we won't be able to do that we have the potential to do at the moment," she said. Patukeha kaikōrero Lamorna Ahitapu-Rogers says fast-track legislation has left her community without a voice. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf Hopper Developments, one of two companies behind the proposal, did not respond to requests for comment. During last Thursday's council meeting in Kaikohe, speakers from Ngāti Kuta, Patukeha, Ngāti Hine and the local community board laid out their concerns. Natasha Clarke-Nathan, a kaikōrero for Ngāti Kuta and Patukeha, said the proposed marina was "extremely large" with 250 berths, a boat ramp and shops, all in a remote part of the Bay of Islands. It would exclude local people from an important area for gathering kai moana and effectively privatise part of the Bay of Islands. "In our minds this is a privatisation, or a raupatu [confiscation], in favour of the wealthy," Clarke-Nathan said. The development would contribute to the eastern Bay of Islands becoming a "dumping ground" for holiday homes and boats that were used only a few weeks a year. It did not meet the requirements for fast-tracking because it offered no regional or national benefits, she said. Opponents of a fast-tracked marina proposal packed the public gallery at Thursday's Far North District Council meeting. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf She disputed the applicants' claim there were no wāhi tapu in the area and said their figures for the marina's economic benefits were greatly overstated. Clarke-Nathan said the applicants claimed a strong demand for marina berths, but the nearest existing marina, at Ōpua, had 20 empty berths. The real demand was in Kerikeri, at the other end of the Bay of Islands. Ahitapu-Rogers told councillors increasing the number of boats in the area would raise the risk of spreading the seaweed pest caulerpa. The eastern Bay of Islands was already "ground zero" for the caulerpa invasion in Northland, she said. A report released that same week by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research estimated caulerpa's cost to the New Zealand economy could reach $9.4 billion. Louise Dews, of the Eastern Bay of Islands Preservation Society, and Pere Huriwai-Seger were among those calling for council support in their fight against a fast-tracked marina. Photo: RNZ/Peter de Graaf Jane Hindle, Russell representative on the Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board, said a project that amounted to the "wholesale transfer of seabed into private ownership" needed the full scrutiny of the RMA. Opponents of the development have called a public meeting at Russell's Kororāreka Marae at 1pm on 18 May. Waipiro Bay is about 20km east of Russell in an isolated area on the "back road" between Whangārei and Russell. Development to date is limited to a gated community of top-end holiday homes. Projects which are not specifically named in the legislation, such the marina, have to apply for consideration under the fast-track process. The Ministry for the Environment assesses the application to make sure it's complete, then the Minister for Infrastructure decides whether to accept it for fast-tracking. If accepted it then goes to an expert panel, which may or may not hold a public hearing before deciding on the consent. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
