History comes to the rescue of Papamoa's boundary

David Holland has strong feelings about where Mount Maunganui ends and Papamoa starts. Photo / File

A lively discussion has ignited after a newspaper article placed a new $250 million retirement village in the suburb of Pāpāmoa.

Former Tauranga County Councillor David Holland insisted the Bay of Plenty Times was wrong in its description, saying the end of Maranui St and the start of Papamoa Beach Rd was the correct boundary between Mount Maunganui and Pāpāmoa.

Holland, a surveyor, said this put the Pacific Lakes Village, which was across the road from its sister village Pacific Coast Village, in the Mount suburb of Arataki.

The village developer hedged its bets by saying Pacific Lakes Village was situated on the cusp of Pāpāmoa and Mount Maunganui.

However, a map on the council's website based on Tauranga's postal zones put the villages in Pāpāmoa, as did a map on Google Maps. New Zealand Post's 3118 mail code for Pāpāmoa Beach extended all the way to Sunrise Ave.

''New Zealand Post has unnecessarily confused the issue,'' Holland said.

Pāpāmoa-based city councillor Steve Morris found an old map that showed the boundary of Mount Borough Council and Tauranga County Council in 1980 was at the division of Maranui St and Papamoa Beach Rd.

Tauranga County included the old Papamoa Beach Community Council that was part of the Te Puke/Maketū Riding.

''The Lions Club's 'Welcome to Papamoa' garden was near there too,'' he said.

Morris said this map also showed how, in 1953, the boundary between the Mount and Pāpāmoa was on a line with modern day Sunrise Ave - the boundary that lines up with New Zealand Post and Google.

''Pre-1945, the Mount boundary was way north - around Golf Rd.''

He said the map backed his recollections of how old Mounties referred to Pāpāmoa as starting at Girven Rd.

Morris said the pushing out of the boundary in 1953 to a line with modern day Sunrise Ave may have coincided with the development of the Te Maunga sewage treatment ponds by the Mount Borough Council.

He said, strictly speaking, he did not live in Pāpāmoa but Te Akau.

''Pāpāmoa is where the old hall and railway station were on Te Puke Highway.''

Morris said the point of the old map was that boundaries changed.

Holland said the demarcation line was quite clear between Pāpāmoa and the Mount Maunganui suburb of Arataki.

As at the local government restructuring of 1989, the line was along Sandhurst Drive, which coincided with the end of Mount Borough's Maranui St and the start of Tauranga County's Papamoa Beach Rd.

Other organisations like New Zealand Post, Papamoa College and Arataki School had different delineations for the boundary, but the 1989 boundary must still be seen as the correct boundary, he said.

Holland said he had spoken to some people in the original Sandhurst Drive subdivision and they all defined themselves as part of Mount Maunganui.

Former Tauranga mayor and Papamoa resident Stuart Crosby also defined the boundary at the point where Maranui St ceased, and Papamoa Beach Rd started.

This meant Pacific Coast Village was effectively in the old Mount borough which was today's Omanu/Arataki area, he said.