Charles Ma’s Rotokauri North company is in liquidation
Thursday, 11 April 2024
The company behind a planned 2000-home development on the north-west fringe of Hamilton has been put into liquidation.
Launched in early 2022, Edin Rotokauri was intended to be a brand new suburb that would eventually feature a village centre, a primary school, and a retirement village.
It was to be built on 137 hectares of farmland that a panel of independent commissioners approved for rezoning, and was located about 2 kilometres from Hamilton’s largest shopping centre and the Rotokauri Transport Hub.
The first 72 sections were released for sale in November of 2022, and earthworks were supposed to have started around that time.
But on March 13 an application was made to put Rotokauri North Holdings Ltd into liquidation, according to the NZ Government Gazette.
The application was brought by Bloxam, Burnett and Olliver Limited, an engineering and planning consultancy, and on March 22 the Auckland High Court put the company into liquidation.
Steven Khov and Kieran Jones, from Khov Jones, were appointed liquidators.
Khov confirmed he was working on the liquidation, but said it was early on in the process and they were trying to collect the necessary information.
The first liquidator’s report into the company was due 20 working days after the High Court’s appointment, and he had no further comment until then, he said.
Rotokauri North Holdings Ltd was the company spearheading the Edin Rotokauri development and its director is Charles Ma, whose company Made Group is its ultimate holding company.
Ma, a civil engineer and business graduate of University Auckland, has been a passionate advocate for a new form of urban development with a focus on community and sustainability for some years.
When the Edin Rotokauri development was announced, he said the medium-density development would be unlike anything seen in Hamilton, with about 50% of the site kept as community parks and nature reserves.
Urban development was “a form of art and worship”, he said. “It’s not bricks and mortar that build a city or a town. Communities are built by families and people.”
About 200 to 300 of the planned homes were to be set aside for affordable housing, and his company would partner with Hamilton builders on the development, he said.
Made Group and Ma have been approached for comment on the liquidation of Rotokauri North Holdings Ltd.
But the future of the Edin Rotokauri development is currently unknown.
A Waikato Times reporter visited the site this week, and reported there was no action on site. It was still farmland and, while some trees had been felled, there was no evidence of earthworks.
Bayleys director of corporate projects Gerald Rundle said the agency had been involved in marketing and selling at Edin Rotokauri. But the development was now under contract while due diligence was carried out, and he was not able to say anything further about it.
The Edin Rotokauri website was still up, but its social media links connected to the Made Group show there have been no new posts on the accounts since the middle of last year.
Ma is best known for his ambitious $1 billion plan to develop 3000 homes on an 83ha block in the Auckland suburb of Drury West, 40km south of the central city.
That development, known as Auranga, was dealt a blow in July last year when Ma lost a legal battle against KiwiRail over the location of a new train station. Ma wanted it to be closer to the development’s planned town centre.
Previously, he worked for Lily Investment Company as a project manager and managing director on the development of the Sugar Tree apartment complex in Auckland’s CBD.