Provincial rural industrial hub land for sale

Major urban growth around the three axis points of New Zealand’s ‘Golden Triangle’ cities has led to the establishment of a new industrial hub in East Waikato – with sites in the development now placed on the market for sale.

The development in the rural township of Waharoa mid-way between Hamilton and Tauranga on State Highway 27 has seen the creation of 17 sites within a 19-hectares location called Waharoa Park.  

The Waharoa Park land is zoned for light industrial use under the Matamata Piako District Council plan. This classification allows for activities involved in the manufacturing, fabrication or processing of materials, as well as bulk storage and warehousing.

Five sites in the precinct have been sold, with two tenants already occupying a pair of purpose-built large warehouse units in the hub. The remaining 11 sections for sale within Waharoa Park range in size from 3,219 square metres up to 38,000 square metres and are being sold by negotiation through Bayleys Tauranga.

Commercial and industrial salesperson Graeme Coleman said the front sections within Waharoa Park faced onto Dunlop Road, while landholdings within the development were accessed off Mowatt Street which had been purpose built for the precinct. The sites are priced at between $90 - $140 per square metre depending on their size, and location within the precinct.

He said electricity and telecommunication utility services were installed to the boundary of each plot, with any new owner responsible for the installation of their own septic tank water systems. Waharoa Park had been laid out specifically with its own sedimentation ponds within the location to handle up to 75 percent of runoff.

In August, Matamata Piako District Council was awarded a provincial growth fund grant from the Government to study the potential for increasing the amount of industrial land at Waharoa– with the direct brief to develop a concept plan to an investment-ready state.

Up to $800,000 has been allocated to the project by the provincial growth fund, with an additional $100,000 pledged by Open Country Dairy, Inghams, Balle Bros and Waharoa Industrial Park. The Waharoa industrial growth project’s governing body consists of representatives from the local iwi, the Te Aroha Business Association, Matamamata-Pikao District Council, and the Te Waka economic development agency.

In announcing the grant, the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment said:

“The desired high level outcome is better integration of development and investment planning, leading to higher investment confidence, and few conflicts in resource use.  In turn this will lead to sustainable industrial hub expansion with local employment and skills development opportunities, improving prosperity for those people living in Waharoa and nearby environs - improving GDP and prosperity.”

“Waharoa and nearby Matamata are currently constrained by a lack of integrated land use, and the consequences that has for any development and investment planning. The outcome sought from the provincial growth fund ‘kick-start’ is to build investment confidence and resolve any potential conflict or hurdles arising in any applications for resourcing consent,” Mr Coleman said.

“While the provincial growth fund project will most likely open up more opportunity for such growth in the future, there is no timetable as to when any resulting land will transfer into industrial usage…. it could be years away.

“By comparison, being already consented for light industrial use, Waharoa Park is automatically at the bow-wave of this growth in industrial land usage - with sites in the development in a ready-to-build and occupy state now.”

Mr Coleman said the statistical data for the surrounding countryside could give some indication as to suitable tenancies for land and units within Waharoa Park – which was situated on thee T-junction of the Auckland to Tauranga railway line leading to the Kaimai tunnel.

“In and around Matamata there are 20 horse stud farms. Throughout the Waikato there are 7000 farms and 1.5 million cows, with approximately 10,000 hectares of cropping the likes of maize. potatoes and asparagus. So a business involved in the primary produce sector and based out of Waharoa would be in the hub of its target market.

“Alternatively, being in the middle of the motorway network linking Auckland, Hamilton and Tauranga with locations to the south, Waharoa could evolve as a freight or logistics transfer station similar to the Stag Park Truck Stop on the periphery of Taupo.”

The benchmark for developing Waharoa into a rural industrial precinct was established some four years ago at the nearby North Waikato settlement of Kerepehi – where Hauraki District Council took a long-term business development approach to supporting the creation of a multi-tenanted food manufacturing and research hub in the enclave.

Hauraki District Council invested $9 million in upgrading Kerepehi’s water treatment plant to accommodate the forecast industrial growth in the food processing sector. The territorial authority  added a further substantial lure to attract new businesses to the town through the removal of development contribution fees - making it cheaper for developers to build new premises, and those cost-savings consequently being passed on to incoming tenants or owner/occupiers.

Dairy products manufacturer Allied Faxi Food was the first industrial business to take residency in Kerepehi’s industrial park – with four other industrial companies following suit, including a structural timber structural manufacturer which employs 23 staff.