The Country
  • The Country home
  • Latest news
  • Audio & podcasts
  • Opinion
  • Dairy farming
  • Sheep & beef farming
  • Rural business
  • Rural technology
  • Rural life
  • Listen on iHeart radio

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • Coast & Country News
  • Opinion
  • Dairy farming
  • Sheep & beef farming
  • Horticulture
  • Animal health
  • Rural business
  • Rural technology
  • Rural life

Media

  • Podcasts
  • Video

Weather

  • Kaitaia
  • Whāngarei
  • Dargaville
  • Auckland
  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Hamilton
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Tokoroa
  • Te Kuiti
  • Taumurunui
  • Taupō
  • Gisborne
  • New Plymouth
  • Napier
  • Hastings
  • Dannevirke
  • Whanganui
  • Palmerston North
  • Levin
  • Paraparaumu
  • Masterton
  • Wellington
  • Motueka
  • Nelson
  • Blenheim
  • Westport
  • Reefton
  • Kaikōura
  • Greymouth
  • Hokitika
  • Christchurch
  • Ashburton
  • Timaru
  • Wānaka
  • Oamaru
  • Queenstown
  • Dunedin
  • Gore
  • Invercargill

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / The Country

Coromandel subdivision dream dashed: Developer battling council

Coastal News
13 Dec, 2019 02:29 AM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Sky Mason and Nathaniel Blomfield showing just some of the landscape planting completed on the subdivision.

Sky Mason and Nathaniel Blomfield showing just some of the landscape planting completed on the subdivision.

The street is Mason Rise.

With its benchmark-finish roading, footpaths lined with flowering native shrubs, a panorama of Pacific Ocean islands and Coromandel peaks, it brings its namesake pride.
But developer Sky Mason is also crestfallen.

Notice was given on November 8 that his companies Sky Mason Developments Limited and Tairua Mason Trustee 2013 Limited have gone into liquidation.

His upmarket eco-subdivision of 28 lots on 9.98ha of the farm he explored as a child is no longer in his control.

Eight sections cannot yet be built upon until additional stormwater work is completed, and Sky claims Thames-Coromandel District Council has forced his hand.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"I left two sections in there to make sure people will be paid, so I won't owe anybody money.

"It's for the council to be accountable and someone to be managing this process because I tried my damned hardest. I've got no control or say at all now.

"I'm majorly disappointed."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Sky moved to Tairua at the age of 5 and his parents worked the farm that he developed into his subdivision, Azimuth Estate.

With numerous lots sold to a mix of locals and overseas-based owners, he had planned a second stage of another 24 lots and a third stage with a boutique hotel in the hills at the rear of Tairua Country Club.

"I was trying to establish something in my hometown. If I wanted to make huge profits I would've done it in a different town or piece of land that was flatter," he said.
"I don't know if I'm going to carry on with Stage 2 or 3 because the contingencies can't be calculated.

"Changing the goalposts is the biggest one. I was getting triple-peer reviewed by three engineers that never came to a decision."

Discover more

The Country - Competitions edition

13 Dec 12:00 AM

Kiwi exporters urge WTO to fix appeals process

13 Dec 12:15 AM

Rabobank Best of The Country - December 14, 2019

13 Dec 06:00 PM

Mason said the council had demanded a "massively over-engineered" development and held onto bonds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, with no answers on what he needed to do to get the money released.

"It has received sign-off but the council wanted a bond in place for remedial works they wanted me to do, so they wouldn't sign it off unless I agreed to these works.

"Originally they were priced at $300,000, now through all the arguing with all the engineers we're looking at close to $1 million.

"Everyone has bought into the place knowing the geological risks — it's all part of retaining as they build. For some reason the council wants me to take on this endeavour and fortify the whole mountain."

Azimuth Estate in Tairua.
Azimuth Estate in Tairua.

He said the decision to bring in liquidators meant that an outside company would force resolution, and progress was positive.

"It got to the point with council where I can't talk with them directly, it has to be lawyer to lawyer. I can't get replies from them.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"I just couldn't get it over the line, over a year this process has cost $200,000 just in legal fees.

"What was meant to be a simple process has turned into something so traumatic, because I don't think the council has ever come across this sort of development and we've been used as a guinea pig in the process.

"The lack of communication with council is probably the biggest thing. Asking them how do we do this? They don't know, that's the problem.

"At one point I was left not even knowing how to engage a contractor to price these works because council wouldn't give me clarity on how to release bonds to do the work. It's almost like they've created this scenario over the whole year."

Council response

A subdivision completion 224 certificate was issued for the development in August 2018.
TCDC Operations Group Manager Bruce Hinson said from the time that the 224 was issued, the council facilitated regular meetings and communications either face to face, by phone or by email with the developer and his various agents to work through the bonded works.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"The last face-to-face meeting, scheduled in July 2019, didn't occur as it was communicated to the council that the developer would not be attending (due to prior commitments), and that his solicitor was not instructed to attend.

"Council is not aware of any direct communications from the developer to council, which have not been responded to. Council staff have also had various communications with the developer's lawyer since issue of the 224 certificate, but in more recent months communications have been direct between TCDC lawyers and the developer's lawyers, due to legal complexities of the matter and commercial sensitivities.

"Council has not withheld release of the landscaping bond provided for the development. There is a current landscaping maintenance bond which had a term of five years and is therefore not yet due for release.

"The developer has been fully aware from the start that conditions of consent required the provision of a Geotechnical Completion Report (GCR), as the developer had to endorse those conditions.

"This report included various recommendations and restrictions in relation to lot development, including matters specifically applied for by the developer as part of a variation to the subdivision consent.

"The GCR report was submitted by the developer's engineers as part of the 224 process to comply with the conditions of consent," said Mr Hinson.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Mr Mason said the five-year landscaping plan was broken into two parts.

"If we weren't performing council could force us to do the work. Not only did they take the $680,000 for the remediation works bond which we couldn't reach a resolution for, but the landscaping bond of $150,000 we've complied with fully all along.

"What really threw us was that half the landscaping bond was supposed to be released, and the remainder released over the next four years for spot planting and maintenance. It's to ensure what we established grows for the next four years. I have no idea why they thought they could refuse to release that money."

He said now the council has taken over the subdivision it was starting to get overgrown: "No one has mown the lawn for ages."

He is now trying to win the contract to undertake landscaping maintenance.

"I want to make it beautiful and take care of it — it's the whole reason we did the subdivision and the whole project is my baby and Nathaniel's baby. There's heaps of pride in the job."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Sky Mason at the upmarket eco-subdivision of 28 lots on 9.98ha of the farm he explored as a child. The subdivision is no longer in his control because two companies of his are in liquidation.

Sky Mason and Nathaniel Blomfield showing just some of the landscape planting completed on the Tairua subdivision.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from The Country

The Country

'What residents deserve': Water trial treatment plant to be set up in Marton

13 Jul 05:15 PM
The Country

‘A win-win’: Forestry company gifts venison to food bank

13 Jul 05:00 PM
The Country

‘Still there’: Removal of logging machine sent tumbling over cliff proving tricky

12 Jul 05:59 PM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from The Country

'What residents deserve': Water trial treatment plant to be set up in Marton

'What residents deserve': Water trial treatment plant to be set up in Marton

13 Jul 05:15 PM

The new system will not be fully operational in time for spring and summer.

‘A win-win’: Forestry company gifts venison to food bank

‘A win-win’: Forestry company gifts venison to food bank

13 Jul 05:00 PM
‘Still there’: Removal of logging machine sent tumbling over cliff proving tricky

‘Still there’: Removal of logging machine sent tumbling over cliff proving tricky

12 Jul 05:59 PM
The great 'goat menace' of 1949

The great 'goat menace' of 1949

12 Jul 05:00 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP