Bold eco-village plan seeks green light
An ambitious multimillion-dollar plan to transform dairy land into restored wetlands and an ecovillage close in the Bay of Plenty has about a week left to woo locals.
Auckland developer Ben Turner, through his company Property Seven, has lodged applications for various consents for the development, Matuku Moana, with the Western Bay of Plenty District Council.
The proposed project, in Pukehina, a beachside settlement with about 750 homes, aims to restore 400 acres of farmland now used for dairy farming to its original wetlands status and sell 137 sections of about half an acre each for a 137-home eco-village within the wetlands area.
The homes would have covenants to ensure they were run with green technologies such as solar power and on-site water collection systems.
Submissions on the project must be with the council by November 15.
Turner, not willing to be interviewed, has engaged Ma¯ ori historian and consultant Buddy Mikaere to front the project. Mikaere said Turner was a modest, quite private man.
Turner is originally from the Bay of Plenty, having grown up in Mount Maunganui, according to information supplied by agents. He had worked in the building and development industry most of his life and was at present a project manager for Action Maintenance, a job that involved working with developers and investors on various joint ventures.
The idea came from seeing the pollution at his baches at Manukau Harbour and Pukehina Beach. He wanted to do something to help clean the environment.
Mikaere said it would be the biggest private wetlands restoration project in New Zealand. He did not know the estimated cost.
‘‘There’s no doubt it’s going to cost a lot of money to restore such a big area of wetland. The idea is to fund it all through the sale of the housing subdivision land.’’
The sections were at least 2000 square metres, triple the size of a standard section, and might cost from $500,000 to $700,000 each, Mikaere said.
‘‘We’re looking for a community of like-minded people. There will be a premium attached to living there, clearly – built on the beach with all the advantages that that will bring.’’
Mikaere said the project was expected to be completed in three stages and might take five years in total. Once consents were secured the developer wanted to have work on the wetland under way next year, so that building platforms for the eco-homes could be established. The earliest that might be was late summer.
The development needed public support to go ahead. The application by Property Seven for subdivision consent said the developers wanted to use the ‘‘protection lots subdivision rules’’ in the Western Bay of Plenty District Plan to create the lifestyle blocks to accommodate a single dwelling.
Those rules allow a landowner to protect established areas of bush, wetland or other ecologically significant areas in exchange for extra subdivision lots, which may either be subdivided from the land where the ecological feature is located, or other land.
The proposed wetland would be managed by a trust established by Property Seven in partnership with the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, tangata whenua and Fish and Game New Zealand.
Parts of the wetland would be available for public recreational activities.