Cousins Karl Leonard (left) and Te Ururoa Flavell outside Rotorua Lakes Council chambers holding a decades-old picture of their whānau. Photo / Laura Smith
Cousins Karl Leonard (left) and Te Ururoa Flavell outside Rotorua Lakes Council chambers holding a decades-old picture of their whānau. Photo / Laura Smith
Ownership of a public reserve in Ngongotahā will be gifted back to the whānau who donated it decades ago.
Backers of the move included former Te Pāti Māori co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell, who said it was once part of the family farm.
Rotorua Lakes Council agreed to dispose ofthe “surplus” 810sq m section in April after a majority of public submissions supported this.
Last week, councillors voted to gift the land back to descendants of the original owners, without charge.
It is across the road from a larger reserve that provides public access to Lake Rotorua.
Mayor Tania Tapsell told the meeting last Wednesday that the original gifting of the land to the benefit of the community was a “great generosity”, and thanked the whānau for that.
“It would give me no greater joy than to return this land to the descendants … on the same good faith it was given to us previously.”
She supported gifting back the land without recovering costs as she believed the council would quickly benefit from not having to maintain the land.
Tapsell believed it was in the district’s best interest to return the land, and noted the larger reserve remained across the road.
The section of council land to be returned is between 21 and 23 Ranginui St, across the road from a lakeside reserve. Photo / Google Maps
Councillor Robert Lee said the council had to act in the best interest of ratepayers regarding the “asset”.
“We cannot be gifting ratepayers’ land … to our mates.”
He backed selling it, saying “genuine grievances” were for the Waitangi Tribunal.
Councillor Conan O’Brien said councillors were not there just as “bean counters” but to provide some “natural justice” in suitable circumstances.
He said while the council was not 100% sure how it came to own the land, there was no proof it was purchased.
His grandmother spent lots of time at the marae and wharenui with Ranginui, he said, while her son and former deputy mayor Pakeke was an influence for why Maxwell stood for council.
Maxwell said he had seen land gifted back similarly in the past and noted the “huge support” for doing so through submissions.
Flavell told Local Democracy Reporting his whānau were “very happy” with the council’s decision to gift back the land but they had not decided what to do with it.
The family was “very clear”, however, that the land would not be alienated from them in the future, and they would ensure whānau could access it.
Flavell and his cousin Karl Leonard previously addressed the council to ask for the section’s return.
Flavell’s submission said the land was part of the whānau farm owned by his kuia Ranginui Whakaue Hikairo and koro Heketoro Leonard.
He understood his grandparents’ farm was subdivided in the late 1950s for whānau, and his uncle Pakeke Heketoro Leonard transferred the section to the council in 1962.
He did not believe it was under the Public Works Act and said no reserve contribution obligation existed for Māori Freehold Land at that time.
He gave the land to the city in 1964 for a reserve and playground, but the council decided to remove the playground in 2022 and not replace it.
Laura Smith is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based at the Rotorua Daily Post. She previously reported general news for the Otago Daily Times and Southland Express, and has been a journalist since 2019.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
