The group says the ancient urupa is much larger than the fenced-off area adjacent to the development site that is still in use to this day.<\/p>\n
The appeal is against a decision by Heritage New Zealand to approve an archaeological authority consent for a 240-lot residential development on a 26.9ha site at 77 Bunyan Rd, Whakat\u0101ne, known as the \u014cpihi Block.<\/p>\n
The land is owned by Whakat\u0101ne District Council, which entered into a sale and purchase agreement with the developers for $7.775 million in 2017 with an agreement that 10 of the 40ha would be reserved for a retirement village.<\/p>\n
Quotable Value currently values the property at over $16m.<\/p>\n
Whakat\u0101ne District Council granted resource consent for the development on March 4, 2021.<\/p>\n
The \u014cpihi Whanaungakore Trustees, alongside Te R\u016bnanga o Ng\u0101ti Awa and members of hap\u016b Ng\u0101i Taiwhakaea, took the council to the Environment Court to have a resource consent overturned on grounds the land had enduring and significant ancestral value for the iwi and hap\u016b. <\/p>\n
The \u014cpihi Block at Piripai is considered by some to be the site of one of New Zealand’s most ancient urupa. Photo \/ LDR<\/p>\n
In a May 2022 decision, the court found the appellants had no right of appeal and a further appeal to the High Court agreed with this finding. <\/p>\n
Another appeal was lodged against Heritage New Zealand and was notified to be heard in October 2022 but was adjourned to allow interested parties an opportunity to resolve the dispute.<\/p>\n
An application for fast-track consenting for the project was submitted in May 2024 but the Ministry for the Environment has withheld information about this under the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n
\u014cpihi Whanaunga Kore kaitiaki group is organising a hikoi on the day of the hearing for supporters of their case for the area not to be developed.<\/p>\n
The supporters will meet at Mataatua Reserve from 7.30am before walking to REAP House in Pyne St where the hearing is set to take place.<\/p>\n
\u2013 LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The group says the ancient urupa is much larger than the fenced-off area adjacent to the development site…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2196,151246,1349,100586,273,6119,17150,6750,15124,35698,14236,5838,3339,151248,2720,111,43,139,69,1523,151244,3263,1857,1361,151245,2240,151247,1533],"class_list":["post-264890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-ancient","tag-burial","tag-court","tag-determine","tag-environment","tag-faces","tag-fate","tag-february","tag-fight","tag-hearing","tag-held","tag-help","tag-housing","tag-kore","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pihi","tag-project","tag-site","tag-that","tag-urupa","tag-whakatne","tag-whanaunga","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}