Sale of part of town upsets shareholder

Press, 15 November 1984, Page 28

Sale of part of town upsets shareholder

PA Wellington A part of the North Island town of Mangakino is up for sala

The decision, made by the proprietors of the Mangakino Township Incorporation and trustees of Pouakani No. 2 Trust at a meeting in Wairarapa on Saturday, has upset at least one shareholder.

Mangakino, north-west of Lake Taupo and about 50km from Putaruru, is a former construction town for workers who built three sets of dams on the' Waikato River.

When the Government no longer needed the town, it returned the land — Pouakani No. 2 block — to its Maori owners who established the Township Incorporation to administer it. Because of a Government deal with Wairarapa Maoris early this century, the Mangakino land is owned by descendants of the Wairarapa sub-tribe, — Ngati Kahungungu ki Wairarapa, — who swapped it for Lake Wairarapa. With assets of about $lB million, the Mangakino Incorporation was one of the biggest and most diverse incorporations or Maori trust activities in New Zealand said the chairman of the proprieters’ manage-

ment committee, Mr Tom Johnson. It owns all but 20 of the about 720 sections in Mangakino — an asset worth $3,450,000 — and two sheep and cattle stations, 18 dairy units and a forest farm block of 15,000 acres.

The Mangakino property is, however, governed by leases in perpetuity and it is this that has led the owners to want to sell 100 of the sections.

In his report to Saturday’s annual meeting, Mr Johnson said that the management committee had been faced with a quandary in trying to make them profitable. "It is not that a profit cannot be made, but a net return of about 0.05 per cent on the nominal capital investment would hardly be attractive to anyone who is looking for a normal return of 10 per cent,” he said. Mr Johnson said he believed that selling some of the sections would increase the relative value of all of them and produce higher rents next time they came up for renewal in seven to 14 years. Selling the properties — the owners of houses on them, have been asked if they are interested — would produce extra cash that the owners could invest for a

better return, he said. Having more freehold properties in. the town would encourage people to build new homes that would further improve the value and appearance of the town. The proposal was agreed to, with some dissenting voices, at the annual meeting at Papawai marae in Greytown, in Wairarapa, on Saturday. Some tenants had made offers in writing and all that remained to be done now was to finalise arrangements and sign, Mr Johnson said. But an Auckland shareholder, Mrs Patricia Hayward, has questioned the way the decision was reached. She said the committee originally agreed to defer it for a year and then, after several owners had left, decided the issue.

However, Mr Johnson said that Mrs Hayward had confused the issue with discussion of the consolidation of two land areas into one block, which was deferred. The township sale was discussed in the mid-after-noon when the majority of owners were present, he said. Any concerns that the incorporation might wish to sell the whole town were illfounded.