{"id":564364,"date":"2026-08-10T04:36:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564364\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T04:36:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T04:36:27","slug":"hawkes-bay-land-acquisition-hits-hurdle-for-350m-waikare-gorge-highway-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/564364\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawke\u2019s Bay: Land acquisition hits hurdle for $350m Waikare Gorge highway upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Waikare Gorge realignment project<\/a> will improve State Highway 2 between Napier and Wairoa, adding resilience to a key section of the East Coast\u2019s road network.<\/p>\n

The project has an estimated cost of $350 million to $425m<\/a> and features 4km of new highway and a 160m-long bridge high above the gorge.<\/p>\n

\"SH2SH2 will take a new path when the project is completed. Photo \/ NZTA<\/p>\n

The old Waikare Gorge bridge was washed away during Cyclone Gabrille in 2023.<\/p>\n

A temporary bridge now stands in its place.<\/p>\n

The land in question includes sections of farmland at 5237 and 5257 State Highway 2 at P\u016bt\u014drino, on the southern side of the gorge.<\/p>\n

According to the notice, Land Information New Zealand (Linz), which represents the Crown, wants to acquire about 8ha.<\/p>\n

It also wants to lease a further 6ha, which will eventually be returned to the landowner.<\/p>\n

The land is owned by Dianne and Christopher Torr, who are directors of an associated group, Waikare Dairy.<\/p>\n

The Torrs declined to comment when contacted by Hawke\u2019s Bay Today.<\/p>\n

In terms of process, the landowners (or other related parties) have 20 working days to object directly to the Environment Court, in which case a hearing will be scheduled.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Waikare Gorge bridge was destroyed during Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo \/ NZME<\/p>\n

If there is no objection, the Crown will compulsorily acquire the land, and compensation will be made to the landowner.<\/p>\n

While the window for making an objection remains open, none have been made to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cGenerally, objections are rare, but the Crown has received objections in the past for other projects,\u201d Linz assessment leader Anneke Turton said.<\/p>\n

The acquisition process had previously included a Notice of Desire, she said, which involved inviting the owner to sell the land and providing them with an estimate of the land\u2019s value as assessed by a registered valuer.<\/p>\n

\u201c[If] the Crown or local authority has made every endeavour to acquire the land by agreement for at least three months [and] if no agreement is reached … the Crown agency which requires the land will submit a request to Linz seeking that the Minister for Land Information [Mike Butterick] issue a Notice of Intention,\u201d Turton said.<\/p>\n

An explainer about the land acquisition process, published on a Government website, says the most common issue that prevented a purchase agreement was \u201cdifferences over the value of the land being acquired\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, compulsory acquisition occurs where agreement is considered unlikely to be reached within the timeframes necessary to secure the land,\u201d the explainer states.<\/p>\n

Once construction is underway, the entire realignment project will take about four years to complete.<\/p>\n

It is hoped to be completed by the end of 2030.<\/p>\n

All other private land required for the project has now been acquired, NZ Transport Agency confirmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Waikare Gorge realignment project will improve State Highway 2 between Napier and Wairoa, adding resilience to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[277710,14837,19064,1561,10808,36652,2082,121901,1976,26755,4508,29716,19720,266263,661,111,43,139,69,1523,3263,13673,19328,57919,24927,14043,229688,102],"class_list":["post-564364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-350m","tag-acquisition","tag-agreement","tag-bay","tag-crown","tag-farmland","tag-for","tag-gorge","tag-hawkes","tag-highway","tag-hits","tag-hurdle","tag-land","tag-landowner","tag-major","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-project","tag-purchase","tag-reach","tag-roading","tag-unable","tag-upgrade","tag-waikare","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564364","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=564364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}