A major cultural and tourist complex that will include a live, working Maori village and a fortified model pa is being planned at Te Hana, five kilometres north of Wellsford.
The project has been developed over the last two years by the Te Hana Community Development Charitable Trust, which now has the necessary resource consents to proceed.
Its features will include a tourist centre, with an audio-visual theatre, retail and cafe facilities, arts-and-crafts studio and lecture theatre.
As part of the proposal the trust aims to restore and re-open access to tour boats on the Kaipara Harbour by using the tidal Te Hana stream that flows beside the land where the centre will stand alongside State Highway One.
Project co-ordinator for the trust Thomas de Thierry said the concept would mark Te Hana as the gateway to the North.
It was the point where the Rodney and Auckland region converged with the Kaipara district and the Northland Regional Council area.
The proposal would create job opportunities for residents of the area as well as provide community and tourist education and a platform for nurturing Maori culture and history, Mr de Thierry said.
It would be ``an authentic Maori experience of the North'', he said.
"This is also about unity - uniting and strengthening the bond between Maori and European."
He said that in 1862, when early European settlers arrived in the area at Wharehine, Ngati Whatua rangatira (chief) Te Hekua Paikia had welcomed the newcomers with a feast, saying: "I have known my heart's desire. I have sold large blocks of land to the Government so that my Pakeha brothers may live by me in good friendship and peace."
This Waitangi Weekend the trust was planning a small ceremony at the Te Hana Hall to mark "the signing and and partnership of two great races".
Because the community trust was a charitable organisation, any profits from the Te Hana project would return to the community by way of scholarships and training opportunities.
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