The future looks uncertain for a group of Whangarei businessmen who could soon be dealing with new landlords.
The business owners lease their properties in the Port Whangarei/Limeburners Creek area, from the Whangarei District Council but a change of ownership looks imminent.
The council has been trying to sell the land, inherited from the former Northland Harbour Board, for the past year-and-a-half.
During much of that period, the leaseholders were given the first and exclusive right to buy their properties, and many did.
However, a group of leaseholders didn't buy, claiming the council had over-inflated the valuations of the properties and effectively priced them out of the market.
Employing Whangarei lawyer Wayne Peters, the group made an application late last year for a court injunction to stop the council selling the remaining properties on the open market.
The application was unsuccessful and the council now plans to make a statement on the future of the properties within the next couple of weeks. Some of the leaseholders had asked for a couple more years in which to raise the finances required to buy their properties but WDC Support Services manager Alan Adcock said now was the time to sell.
"We're selling now because we want the funds now to progress a wide range of important projects. If we waited a few years as suggested, the price of those projects would be higher, and so would the price of the land."
Adcock said the council had to balance its responsibility to local businesses with its responsibility to ratepayers to return the best price on land.
The market sets the price, not the council, Adcock says, adding that the leaseholders have already been given 17 months to purchase their properties (including the non-exclusive period).
"During this time 22 leaseholders have completed purchases, and another 11 have submitted tenders. This suggests it is a minority who need more time."
Of the leaseholders who did not buy, four spoke to the Northern Advocate about their frustration with the way the council has gone about selling the land and the uncertainty they feel about the future. Boat builder Fraser Foote says he'll pick up his business and move out of town if the site he leases is sold.
Foote, who owns Northland Contract Boatbuilders on Fraser St, said he desperately wants to own the site but can't afford the price the council is asking, not now.
The boatbuilding industry had taken a major hit but the company had been thrown a potential lifeline in the form of an aviation project that could be worth $10 million a year and employ 50 people.
However, Foote says the contract could be unviable if the land ownership is not secured.
"If we can't own the land, we'll probably take the buildings away, we'll probably leave town."
Prominent Whangarei businessman Mark Cromie has also previously threatened to leave town if the sales go through, however he now admits doing so would be easier said than done.
Owner of a large Holden dealership and numerous properties around Whangarei, Cromie also leases two properties from the council on Kioreroa Rd.
Valued at $600,000 by TelferYoung in 2008 and $582,000 by McNally Valuation in 2010, Cromie was shocked when the council asked $980,000 for the sites in 2010 and $1,095,000 in 2011.
The 2010 price included a 40 per cent "first right of refusal" premium on top of a lessor's interest valuation by TelferYoung.
The 2011 price was set using a valuation provided by Auckland valuer CBRE.
Adcock said the council commissioned CBRE to provide a second opinion on property values following feedback from the leaseholders.
Cromie can't believe how different the CBRE valuation is from the earlier valuations.
"I look at what land sales have happened in the last year or two years in Whangarei, they're not even fetching half QV," he said.
"Whangarei valuers know what the value of the sites are in Whangarei." Following the last call for tenders, Cromie offered $930,000 for the two sites but his offer was rejected, he said.
Managing director of Busck Prestressed Concrete on Fraser St, Russell Bennetto, had an independent valuation done of his site in May last year.
Northland Valuers put the value of the site at $1.8 million.
The CBRE valuation used by the council less than six months later added close to $1 million to the value of the site, he said.
Bennetto, who manages more then 50 employees, said the council should consider the big picture, not just the top dollar.
"We're struggling to stay in business, where's the council supporting us for the employment and the wealth and the revenue that we are trying to bring to this town?
"We would love to buy for a fair price, what we consider a true fair market price, which is not going to unfairly impede the ratepayers or the council, but at the moment we've got a professional independent valuation that's sitting 35-40 per cent apart from what council says it is."
Next door, Norsand Boatyard owner Murray Wilkinson reckons it's the timing of the sale offer that presents the most difficulties for him.
Norsand bought half of the adjacent Kaituna Block from the council in 2009 and the business' finances are still tied up in developing the land, Wilkinson said.
Wilkinson said he was too heavily invested to pack up and leave, but he would if he could.
"This is the council from hell as far as I'm concerned."