The headland is north of Leigh, shown to the left here. Photo / supplied
The headland is north of Leigh, shown to the left here. Photo / supplied
A tangata whenua trust is opposing plans for a 22-guest resort north of Auckland because it is beside a marae and on land with a historic pā and the only accessway to an urupā.
Mook Hohneck, Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust chairman, said that the entity accepted residential accommodationwas a legitimate use of the privately-owned land beside Ōmaha Marae but a resort planned by a company owned by Carmel and Hugh Fisher, previously of Fisher Funds, was not what the land was zoned for nor what the trust would accept.
Hugh and Carmel Fisher's company wants to develop the resort. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
The trust would occupy the land if it had to, to stop development, Hohneck said.
"The Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust will take whatever action we need to take to oppose any development that is going to impinge on our customary rights and responsibilities on our whenua and in and around our marae and on our sacred whenua of our tipuna," Hohneck told the Herald.
"This development is being built next to our marae. There has been no consultation of any major level with the trust or more importantly with its people. Our marae trustees have failed in their duties to call a hui with the people and have no right whatsoever to encourage the development of this site next to our marae," Hohneck said.
"We're filing submissions against it," he said.
The trust's cultural values assessment raised points against Carmel and Hugh Fisher's application via their company Panetiki to build the guest accommodation on the land beside the marae.
The couple were behind the establishment of Fisher Funds, which now manages $13 billion, but sold out of the business some years ago.
The beach beneath where the resort is planned. Photo / Supplied
Carmel Fisher, who has been called a "trailblazer" in the finance world, told the Herald she didn't want to comment on the application "because we don't have a resource consent, it's very early".
But she indicated she had confidence in the plans.
Panetiki has applied to demolish residential buildings where a farmer once lived and develop five big new buildings on the headland north of Leigh.
Technical officer Matthew McClymont prepared a cultural values assessment, which said the development application should be fully notified so everyone could have a say. But the Auckland Council only allowed limited notification.
Mook Hohneck of the Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust. Photo / Anne Gibson
The assessment noted the Ngāti Manuhiri trust's opposition to the plan because it was close to the urupā and "wāhi tapu beach access path used for ceremonial purposes".
Concerns about ground disturbance in areas where there were archaeological materials, wāhi tapu, sites of significance or other taonga were also cited.
The trust was also concerned about discharge of effluent over wāhi tapu sites and inappropriate activities like eating and drinking there.
The trust's rohe goes from Bream Tail in Mangawhai to Okura river mouth south of Whangaparāoa and includes the development land.
Ōmaha Marae is the sole marae of Ngāti Manuhiri and the only one on the east coast between Tutukaka in the north and Ōrākei in the south. Annie Baines (Ngāti Wai), chairwoman of Ōmaha Marae Trust that administers the freehold Māori land beside the Fishers' place, said her tūpuna were buried in the urupā, which was originally accessed via sea, with tūpāpaku hauled up from below via a tree.
Her grandmother once owned the access to the marae and urupā "but in the 80s we got rated off the land. They sold it for $60,000," she said.
The trust backed the plans and the relationship between the two was excellent, she said.
Plans last year to get helicopter landing rights on the headland, an hour north of Auckland, have been abandoned, the application said.
In 2019, the Herald reported the couple had paid $12 million for the 9ha headland.
Submissions on the resort scheme closed this month.
