Defunct Meremere power station up for tender

By ANNE GIBSON

For sale: one mothballed power station.

Location: just 60km from downtown Auckland.

Includes: a 5220 sq m "interesting" turbine hall, five storeys

Land owner: Tainui.

History: troubled.

The derelict Meremere power station buildings and the lease on the 106ha block of Tainui-owned land are up for sale, following Maori occupation of the plant and the failure of a previous multimillion-dollar plan for the site.

Genesis Power is seeking expressions of interest in its buildings and leasehold land at the now defunct power plant.

The buildings were valued at $7.2 million last year, said Wayne Muir and Hermann Trebitsch, brokers for real estate agents Barfoot and Thompson Commercial, which is in charge of the tender.

But this was the rateable value of the buildings for electrical generating purposes: "Other estimates vary widely on the basis of removal of all electricity generating equipment," the agents said.

The decision to sell follows the recent withdrawal by Olivine New Zealand, which will instead built its $500 million waste-to-energy plant in Kwinana, West Australia. The plant will be capable of turning 60 per cent of Perth's domestic waste into electricity.

Olivine pulled out after a dispute with Environment Waikato and the Waikato District Council over resource consents for its plant, saying it had spent between $5 million and $6 million seeking approvals.

The agents said the Olivine plan had fallen through after it had spent five years trying to get planning permission.

More than 60 people from the Tainui hapu Ngati Naho occupied the site for 17 days from October 24 last year.

Ngati Naho claimed to have been left out of consultation over the future use of the power station land, which is leased from Tainui by Genesis Power. The hapu aimed to return the land to its people.

One Ngati Naho grievance was that Genesis Power did not consider a tender from the hapu for the dismantling of the plant.

Tenders for the buildings and the lease on the land close on March 15.