A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
New legislation to help owners of Maori freehold land use, develop and live on their whenua has been described as presenting exciting opportunities for Tairawhiti.
Gisborne district councillors, sitting as the finance and performance committee, received an information report on the Local Government (Rating of Whenua Maori) Amendment Act passed by Parliament in April.
Councillor Tony Robinson said the staff report on the Act was exciting to read.
“I want to acknowledge the Government's mahi (work) in finally getting to this position because Maori rateable land has been such a barrier and such a problem. It's really significant in Tairawhiti.
“This is a really exciting time for the country but particularly for this region.”
The Act gives councils the ability to support the use and development of Maori freehold land in several ways.
Key changes in the Act are —
1. Provides chief executives with the power to remove rate arrears if satisfied that the rates are uncollectable or if a previous owner is deceased.
2. Makes most unused Maori freehold land non-rateable.
3. Provides a statutory rates remission process for Maori land under development.
4. Allows multiple Maori land blocks from a parent block to be treated as one for rating purposes if they are used jointly as a single unit.
5. Allows councils to create separate rating areas on request so individual houses on Maori freehold land can be rated separately.
Tairawhiti has over 3200 Maori freehold units comprising over 228,000 hectares.
Council revenue team leader Fiona Scragg told councillors it was “a big process” to determine what land would be non-rateable.
“A lot of it will depend on people applying for non-rateable status and applications for debt to be written off.”
Cr Dowsing said he was interested in the number of abandoned land sales in the district and wondered if it “could fit within the anti-racism work that the council is doing”.
The Act protects Maori land that is made general land by the Maori Affairs Amendment Act from being sold or leased as abandoned land sales.
Mrs Scragg said there had been a couple of abandoned land sales that fitted this criteria “probably about 12 years ago”.
“We advertised some probably about six or seven years ago but we withdrew them at that time.
“I think that there's probably been in the past, about two or three, but we have not conducted any annual land sales for a long time.”
Council chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann said there had been a council advertisement for abandoned land sales property in 2017.
That process had started about seven years before. It was a long process and was quickly withdrawn.
“We were working with the runanga around locating owners or succession for that.
“That has been a very historical practice that has happened in council, and no longer does.”
Cr Bill Burdett said the Act meant multiple Maori land blocks on a parent block could be treated as one for rating purposes if used jointly as a single unit.
“It's there in black and white. Maori land is no different to all of us in terms of your pepiha — where you come from, which you belong to.
“This is now law, l-a-w, not l-o-r-e.”
Cr Kerry Worsnop queried if carbon farming on Maori land was no longer rateable under the Act.
Ms Scragg said that was the case if the land was being used solely for carbon farming.
When Cr Worsnop said that was a significant issue for the district, Ms Scragg replied that she would go back to the Department of Internal Affairs for clarification.
But Internal Affairs had “made a particular point” of it.
Cr Pat Seymour said she supported Cr Worsnop's concern.
It seemed incongruous that people could develop land for carbon credits to get an annual income but not be rated.
She wanted to see the matter investigated further.
The council report said $605,000 in rates and penalties had been removed to date for properties which now met the non-rateable criteria.
Of 194 properties which had been made non-rateable, 93 were previously receiving rate remissions.
More financial details will be available later in the year when applications are received for remission for land under development, or for non-rateable status for unused land.
The community at large are also affected as the rates on individual properties may increase when the number of rateable rating units decrease due to the change of status to non-rateable.
The rates arrears will reduce on an ongoing basis when unused properties are no longer rated.