The sale of a luxury resort on the Karikari Peninsula in the Far North does not mean an end to the local iwi's long-running court battle to stop development on what it says is an ancestor's burial cave - at least not yet.
Since 2009 Te Runanga-a-iwi o Ngati Kahu has been fighting Peppers Carrington Resort's previous owner, US billionaire Paul Kelly, and the Far North District Council over plans for a dozen new homes near Karikari Beach. Following a series of financially draining legal victories and losses, the iwi was last month granted permission to take its case to the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
Chief executive Anahera Herbert-Graves said the sale of the resort did not change the runanga's determination to stop development at Te Ana o Taite, the burial cave of Ngati Kahu ancestor Taite.
Iwi leaders were hoping to meet the new Chinese owners soon. "We'll see where we go from there," she said.
"The issue is that the consents still stand, so we still have to knock those consents over."
The runanga's dispute with the council also still stood, Ms Herbert-Graves said.
Mr Kelly had argued he was no longer bound by a 2001 out-of-court settlement not to build within 800m of the high-water mark because he had formed a new company.
The council, however, could not use that argument, Ms Herbert-Graves said. It should not have issued the consents in the first place.
Peppers Carrington Resort includes a lodge, golf course, restaurant, winery, cafe and restored wetlands set on a 1200ha estate. Its new owners, Shanghai CRED Real Estate, are understood to have multimillion-dollar development plans for the property.
Some iwi members helped finance the runanga's David-and-Goliath battle with Mr Kelly, an investment banker, by mortgaging their homes. Others, however, believe the battle is a waste of the runanga's money and say the ancestral bones have long since been removed.
In 2011 the High Court at Whangarei sided with the iwi, quashing the consents allowing the land to be subdivided and built on and ordering the 2001 out-of-court agreement to be observed.
That decision, however, was, in turn, thrown out after an appeal by Mr Kelly's companies.