Mayor: Maori land rating reforms 'on right track'

FILE

Rotorua mayor Steve Chadwick believes Central Government's proposed rating reforms for Maori freehold land are on the right track.

"Any legislative support to encourage more productive use of Maori freehold land has to be a good thing for owners, communities and ultimately, economies," Mrs Chadwick said following this week's announcement by Minister of Maori Affairs Te Ururoa Flavell about proposed changes.

Mr Flavell said Cabinet had agreed to provide local councils with more workable and equitable tools to deal with issues around the rating of unused and unoccupied Māori land.

The proposal has arisen out of a review of Maori land law which aims to make it easier for Maori land owners to make decisions about their land while ensuring its retention.

"This ratings proposal will create a clean slate for owners who want to use or occupy undeveloped land but are laden with ratings debt," Mr Flavell said.

"This ratings change will incentivise Maori land owners to use their land which will in turn provide a boost to the local economy."

Maori land is subject to a different land tenure system and cannot be developed as easily at general land. It is multiple-owned, significantly more fragmented, mostly remote, tends to be poorer quality land and more likely to have access issues, making it difficult to sell and difficult to secure a mortgage over.

Mrs Chadwick said those challenges had been issues which had traditionally impacted the value owners could realise from the land.

"Rotorua Lakes Council has been well aware of the challenges for Maori freehold land and in 2012 the long term plan's rates remission policy supported a similar approach to rating unproductive properties of this nature."

The Rotorua district features more than 1500 parcels of Maori freehold land, the ownership of which includes many thousands of beneficial owners. The majority of New Zealand's non-productive Maori land (about 545,000 hectares) sits in the Far North, Central North Island and East Coast regions.

"Government moving in this way acknowledges the important issues that have been traditional barriers for Maori freehold land owners and also supports the approach the Rotorua district has been using," Mrs Chadwick said.

Three key proposals:

a. Councils will have the ability to make unused and unoccupied Māori freehold land non-rateable and write off rates arrears on unused and unoccupied land once councils have evidence of a commitment to use land;

b. Removal of the two hectare limit on non-rateability for marae and urupā - and any rates arrears removed;

c. Māori freehold land held under Ngā Whenua Rāhui covenants to be non-rateable - and any rates arrears removed.

The proposals will require changes to the Local Government Act 2002 and the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002.