Wedge of land in Mackesy Rd-Riverside Dr area in limbo for 50 years

The steep, bush-covered bank in the background has been no man's land for decades but will soon be merged with Whangarei District Council land where a sportsfield is proposed.

Found: A 3.5 hectare block of land in Whangārei which has been lost for at least 53 years.

The steep bank dropping off the lower, western side of Mackesy Rd down to flat land off Riverside Dr went missing from the books some time before 1965.

Yet in that time the 3.5 ha (8 acres) has more or less been owned by four different public bodies — at least three of those without knowing the land should be theirs - and two of those three now ghosts of councils past.

Confused? Well, it took staff at two councils and a legal eagle to figure this out, too.

Earlier this year the Northland Regional Council fielded inquiries about the wedge-shaped roadside block from an adjacent, land-locked property owner who needed to access his land through it.

After investigation, council staff found the title to the land was in the name of the Whangārei Harbour Board. But the Whangārei Harbour Board has not existed since 1965 when it became defunct and its assets and titles signed over to the Northland Harbour Board.

Somehow, the wedge of land on Mackesy Rd, divided from the actual harbour by a 10 metre wide Crown reserve, ended up marooned.

Having never made it into the new Northland Harbour Board's asset pile, the orphaned title was overlooked when the plug was later pulled on that board during the map-redrawing, asset-crunching local government amalgamations of 1989.

Three criteria came into play for divvying up former harbour board land: Any adjacent to the harbour or coast went to the new Whangārei District Council for recreational use, any used for port activities went to what is now Northport and anything else went to the new Northland Regional Council.

Which more or less brings us up to date with the lost land's new-found ownership.

A short game of catch-up has ended with previously unaware owner, the regional council, tossing the land — described as a highly unstable hazard with at least one sizeable active slip — to the Whangārei Disrict Council to merge with adjacent land it owns. The district council is in the process of filling that flat land for a future sportsfield.

According to a regional council staff report, ''The (Mackesy Rd) land is unlikely to provide a return for the investment property portfolio and could potentially become a 'cost burden'".

In fact now it knows it owns the land, the council seems acutely aware that ''funds will be required both upfront and regularly if retained'', according to a report by strategic projects manager Phil Heatley.

The orphaned land matter was presented to the council at its August meeting, where staff recommendations were accepted for the land to go to its other rightful owner, the district council.