Iwi buys former Turakina Màori Girls’ College site
The keys to the former Turakina Ma¯ ori Girls’ College will stay in Ma¯ ori hands.
Rangitıkei iwi Ngati Apa has bought the 5.16-hectare campus on Hendersons Line, Marton, to relocate its administration headquarters and health and social services unit.
The property was listed on Trade Me last month at a rateable value of $4.7 million, but chairman Pa¯ hia Turia said the iwi’s tender was ‘‘less than [a] quarter’’ of that figure.
The iwi’s two small offices in Bulls and Marton will be sold to support the purchase and upgrades of the former school property, which it can move into on April 6.
The site will be used to host training courses for its members looking at trades and te reo Ma¯ ori. Turia hoped the site could attract groups like UCOL and Land Based Training.
Other options included a highperformance Ma¯ ori school or tertiary institute and an innovation centre that could invite groups like Building Clever Companies, based in Palmerston North.
The Ministry of Education closed the former Presbyterian boarding school for Ma¯ ori girls in January 2016 after $9m of taxpayer funding failed to make a difference. By that time, its roll had dropped from 152 in 2003 to 47.
The school started in Turakina in 1905, but was relocated to Marton in 1927.
Turia said there was a perception the iwi should have done more to keep the school open, but he had helped the board to deal with its financial problems, relationship with the ministry and struggle to attract students.
Several of the iwi’s members were old girls of the school who were ‘‘dismayed’’ when it closed, he said.
‘‘In my opinion, we did all that we could reasonably be expected to do.
‘‘We could not afford to bankroll the school. The closure... was heartbreaking for everyone involved.’’
Turia said several buildings, including the dormitory, dining facility, hall and chapel required seismic strengthening before they could be used.
He was unsure what the cost would be, although the school’s former proprietor, chairman Wayne Te Kaawa, said in 2015 it would be in the millions.
Turia said the iwi had about $40m of net assets, although annual revenues were ‘‘constrained’’.
Membership benefits for the iwi’s 5000 people were limited to a leadership programme and several cultural events. But, Turia aspires to follow larger iwi, which are also subsidising health insurance and running education programmes.
Turia believed the purchase restored an ancestral block of land back to the iwi after it was seized by the Crown after the Treaty of Waitangi singing.
Nga¯ ti Apa sold land to the Government in 1849, expecting trade and other benefits. However, these benefits did not eventuate and European farming destroyed traditional food-gathering sites.
Eventually, the Ngati Apa people lost much of their land and were reduced to poverty.
Today, the tribe is represented by Te Ru¯ nanga o Nga¯ ti Apa, which researches tribal land claims made to the Waitangi Tribunal, and organises health education. Restoring the tribe’s unity and prestige remains a central aim.
Turia said the iwi would protect the special character of the property, keeping the church, taonga, and carvings.
The doors will also remain open to past students and staff to visit.