KEY POINTS:
Eight hundred acres of prime Whangarei coastal land worth an estimated $50 million-plus could be carved up by foreigners - and the Green Party is not impressed.
Up for grabs is Kauri Mountain Farm, located on a peninsula east of Whangarei Harbour, with one boundary including about 5km of the famously beautiful Ocean Beach and another extending to the peaks of Mount Mania.
It has been on the New Zealand market for several months, but now owner Zack Smith, a second-generation Northland farmer whose family has owned the land for decades, has opened bidding to overseas parties.
He is asking for expressions of interest by June 29 and will consider all options for the sale of Kauri Mountain Farm, including breaking the land up, as well as joint ventures for developing the property.
The Herald on Sunday understands that inquiries have already been received from overseas. Murray Owles, a spokesman for the vendor, confirmed the property is being marketed to Australia, Asia, the US, and Europe.
The property - only slightly smaller than New York's Central Park - is being advertised as a "coastal paradise with endless development opportunities", including subdivision.
That prospect has Russel Norman, Green Party co-leader and economic spokesman, hot under the collar.
Norman said New Zealand could expect to see more and more of the country being sold in similar fashion.
"It's just crazy," he said. "There is no need for us as a country to open up all of our prime land and have it bought up by overseas people. What is the gain in the national interest to have our land bought by people who don't live here?
"All it's doing is driving up the property market and making it more expensive for people who live here to buy land."
Owles said the size of the coastal property made it unique on the New Zealand market. "It is just the ultimate in global coastal living really," he said.
"It's got everything - the harbour on one side just over the mountains, and Ocean Beach, which would be as good a surf beach as anywhere in the world, and it's your own."
The publicity statement for the property says it could be split into anything from 15 to 31 lots, but this would require appropriate resource consent and local council approvals.
Overseas bidders are being directed to the Overseas Investment Office (OIO), which much approve a transaction if it will result in foreign investment in sensitive land, significant business assets or fishing quota.
In a statement to the Herald On Sunday, a spokesman for Finance Minister Michael Cullen said: "We have welcomed foreign investment [to New Zealand] for over 150 years. It's what helps drive our economy."
But the Government also recognised that such land sales were an important issue for New Zealanders: "That's why we tightened controls over the purchase of sensitive land."
Russel Norman said the Green Party had little faith in the work of the OIO and its predecessor, the Overseas Investment Commission (OIC).
"Our view has long been that the OIO, and before that the OIC, isn't strict enough at all. They tightened up some of the rules around coastal property in terms of the oversight of those sales, but when you look at how many they've turned down, it's still minuscule," he said. "They're basically still rubber-stamping it all."
That was denied by Cullen's spokesman. "Foreigners are turned down from time to time; there is no rubber stamp," he said.
"It is worth noting... nine out of 28 OECD countries have no restrictions on foreign purchases of property."
