2018 video: Waimarama kaumātua says iwi upset over the Te Mata track was not the reason for the decision to remove it. Made with funding from NZ On Air.
Bayden Barber gets “a sinking feeling in my puku” when he drives past diggers moving earth for three new dwellings beneath the eastern slopes of Te Mata Peak.
A month later, a change in the district plan ensured this would be the last development undertaken on the eastern face of the peak.
Barber says Te Mata Peak “means everything” to Ngāti Kahungunu, and that he has a 150-page cultural report to prove it, but accepts the planned build of two houses and one supplementary dwelling at 282 Waimārama Rd is on private land and could have been worse.
“Instead of two homes, you could have potentially had a hundred homes there and a big gated community,” Barber said.
Once a Certificate of Compliance (COC) was granted in September 2022, the landowners, Hastings District Council and iwi reached an agreement to minimise the visual impact of the buildings.
A COC is a formal record that a proposed development at a point in time is a permitted activity under the District Plan.
The council can only check whether it complies and issue a certificate to confirm if it does - it has no discretion or ability to refuse it.
Covenants are in place that dictate where the dwellings can sit on the property, as well as rules around the planting of shelter belts, exotic forestry and fencing.
“They could have developed that whole area of flat land beneath the peak, so it was a matter of trying to negotiate the best option while acknowledging that they own the property and have a right to develop it as they want,” said Barber.
Which isn’t to say he’s thrilled by the whole thing.
Covenants will govern what can be done with dwellings in this area of Te Mata Peak. Photo / Warren Buckland
“Nah, not really, no. And we expressed that,” Barber said.
“I’d prefer there to be no development in that part of that vista. That would be ideal, given how important that vista is to not just Māori, but to all people.
“It [the granting of resource consent] was only a few years after the track was put there and all that controversy and we tried to emphasise that ideally we’d like to have nothing there.”
The Hastings District Council granted resource consent for a walking track to be cut into the eastern face of Te Mata Peak, without prior consultation with iwi.
It was an issue that divided opinion and the track was eventually filled in by the council.
Barber says a spirit of “compromise” was at the heart of the negotiations around these new dwellings.
He says iwi did not get their wish that the land remain undeveloped, but this is “the next best thing” and there’s comfort in knowing the rest of the area will remain untouched “in perpetuity”.
The HDC says it changed the district plan to October 2022 to prohibit development on the eastern face of Te Mata Peak “to ensure long-lasting protection of the natural and cultural attributes of this outstanding natural landscape for both current and future generations”.
Hamish Bidwell joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2022 and works out of the Hastings newsroom.
* Clarification: This story initially reported that resource consent was granted for the homes in September 2022. It was a Certificate of Compliance and the story has been amended as a result.
