Some residents, however, are welcoming the move.
The industrial site alongside State Highway 2/Waterford Rd is near Uretara Domain and accessed from Phillip Walter Drive, a residential street.
A spokesman from the shipping container company said the business faced a lot of backlash from the community for being an “eyesore”, as well as for noise and dust from the yard.
He said the move to Hamilton was not due to the backlash but to concerns following recent extreme weather events that closed key roads to Auckland and Tauranga.
The spokesman said the business thought moving into the Katikati area would have been a good thing for employment and for a cash injection for local businesses, such as vehicle services.
“We’ve invested at least half a million dollars into the Katikati community between service providers in the last nine months and that’s something they won’t gain next year.”
Many locals were annoyed with the level of noise and appearance of the industrially zoned site when it was operating as a shipping container terminal.
Several locals who were hired as truck drivers would no longer work for the company when it moved, he said.
He said after community members posted complaints about the operation on Facebook, the Western Bay of Plenty District Council checked the operations at the site.
He said they found “we were actually not stacking as high as we were allowed”.
He said the company tried to work with the community and be a good neighbour, for example not operating during the A&P show at the Uretara Domain in February, and taking steps to prevent dust blowing on to the fields.
He said the company was moving to a purpose-built site in Hamilton.
The business had stopped operating at the site, and its lease would end in July.
The site this week – containers are no longer visible.
The man spoke to Local Democracy Reporting on the condition the company was not named.
Current landowner, Thor Hein, said the site would be repurposed into self-storage, including for boats, campervans and caravans.
He said the site would be upgraded before reopening, including new fencing, painting and tidying up the appearance.
Hein said the whole town had given the company “absolute reprimand” despite the operation being allowed under the district plan.
“They haven’t been treated fairly.”
He said heaps of container trucks were coming through the town all day long anyway.
Katch Katikati promotions manager Jacqui Knight said the containers had sparked a lot of discussion.
“While we support our local businesses and understand why the site is being used, we also care about the first impression our town gives.”
She said better maintenance of the grass and trees, and perhaps some screening, would have helped.
Katch Katikati promotions manager Jacqui Knight.
“With some improvements to the look of the entrance, perhaps the containers wouldn’t stand out as much.”
Katikati resident Jennifer Slade said she understood the land was zoned industrial, but the container terminal created noise, traffic problems and brought more container trucks to town.
In her view, the noise and inconvenience to local residents was “incomprehensible”.
“Our footpaths are disgusting, and gutters are always dirty.”
Western Bay of Plenty District Council Katikati-Waihī Beach ward councillor Rodney Joyce. Photo / John Borren
Katikati ward councillor Rodney Joyce said the noise of the operation carried a long distance.
He said he could hear it outside his home near the end of Park Rd.
The biggest issues had been for the families living close to the site.
He said the council checked that the company was following the district plan.
“I know they really tried to make this work.”
He said the community was happy the company was moving.
Fellow ward councillor, Allan Sole, said the neighbours would be pleased to see it go.
“It wasn’t the most wonderful thing to look at as you drove by.
“I wouldn’t have liked it next to me.”
It had employed locals, however, and would be an “economic loss” to the area.
Western Bay of Plenty District Council Katikati-Waihī Beach ward councillor Allan Sole. Photo / John Borren
“It was a great opportunity for Katikati to have another industry here, and it was putting money into the town.”
He said it would have been better if the company were on a different site, though it had been compliant with the rules.
He said the council told him noise limits were not breached.
Western Bay of Plenty District Council regulatory services general manager Alison Curtis said the council received 20 complaints about the site between November 2025 and the end of April 2026.
Noise monitoring by council officers in March found no breaches.
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
Ayla Yeoman is a Local Democracy Reporting journalist based in Tauranga. She holds a Bachelor of Arts majoring in communications, politics and international relations from the University of Auckland, and has been a journalist since 2022.