Failed lifestyle block development set to revert to farm ownership in mortgagee sale

A productive dairy farm purchased with the intention of creating an exclusive enclave of lifestyle blocks, has been placed on the market for sale through a mortgagee process.

Developers of the 149 hectare farm near Katikati in the Bay of Plenty had a vision to subdivide the land into some 41 lifestyle residential sites – with each having an equal ownership of the former working farm where infrastructure and livestock numbers would be maintained.

As resource consent was sought to begin the subdivision, the farm has been milking more than 200 cows - with production this year forecast at 58,000 kilogrammes of milk solids. Resource consent was approved for a 44 lot subdivision to be developed in three stages - of which only stage only has been completed.

The farm is being marketed by Simon Anderson and Sharleen Adams from Bayleys Tauranga, and goes to mortgagee auction on April 26 at the company’s Tauranga offices. Mr Anderson predicted the farm would most likely be purchased by someone with a farming background to convert the land back to its original productive use. The farm is being sold with 44,717 Fonterra shares.

“While the land does have picturesque views over the bay, or across gently-rolling hillsides and native bush, it is, and always essentially has been, a farm,” Mr Anderson said.

“A degree of investment is needed to refurbish parts of the infrastructure up to modern standards, although the ‘bones’ of the property are well structured and ready to run again. Any modernisation will of course have a corresponding boost to the productive output, and it is here that the long-term value of the farm lies.”

Mr Anderson said the property had an effective milking area of some 100 hectares, with an additional 20 hectares available for drystock grazing. Support buildings include a 28 bale rotary cowshed with adjacent cattle yards and loading race, a six bay haybarn, effluent catchment pond and irrigator, and an additional five bay implement shed.

“The farm is subdivided into some 45 paddocks with a mixture of post and wire and two-wire electric fencing. All paddocks have water which is gravity-fed fed from a spring, and there are several small streams running through the gullies,” Mr Anderson said. “Track access across the property is well defined, and was to form the basis of the planned lifestyle subdivision.”

The Katikati farm comes with a 146 square metre four-bedroom residential home built in the 1950s, and an 86 square metre detached garage.