The proposed wind farm would have 48 turbines, each 160m high, and four 110m wind monitoring masts. It has a total generating capacity of 130MW.
A temporary concrete batching plant will be needed to build it, plus the disturbance of up to 66ha of land and the formation of 25 to 30km of road.
The site is coastal farm land between Waverley and Patea, with the nearest house 1km from a turbine and others 3-4km away.
There were initially 24 submissions against the wind farm, but five of these have been withdrawn. Among them were submissions from South Taranaki iwi Ngā Rauru and Ngāti Ruanui.
Tilt Renewables has negotiated extensively with each, and agreed to address their concerns.
Ngāti Ruanui kaiarataki Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said Ngā Rauru had first priority, as the iwi with mana whenua for most of the area. Her tribe came in later, and got what it wanted - a cultural cautionary zone that stretches 900m back from the coast and up both sides of the Whenuakura River.
There are papakainga (village) sites, koi iwi (human remains) and wahi tapu (sacred sites) all along that strip. No turbines will be built there, and the iwi will be consulted if anything is found there.
"It's a big deal for us. It's the first time a cultural cautionary zone has been accepted."
Submitters feared the turbines would be ugly and distract from the natural landscape, that they would be noisy, that birds would collide with them, that traffic would be a problem and that property values would be affected.
On the pro side, submitters said New Zealand needed renewable energy, and the Waverley site had lots of wind to generate it.
The transmission line also attracted submissions, with some saying it would ruin the view of Mount Taranaki, as seen from Waverley.
