Tiny Te Uku faces big changes
Wednesday, 9 October 2024
The tiny settlement of Te Uku could be about to get a lot bigger with the rezoning of 43 hectares of farmland into residential sections.
The sought-after ‘tranquil’ Waikato spot is for sale and is attracting developers from out of the country.
Te Uku, a small farming settlement 10km from Raglan and 34km from Hamilton, is known for its community hub, including a general store, church, coffee stall, art gallery, filling station, community hall and a school.
Locals enjoy a relaxed lifestyle overlooking picturesque wind farms and green pastures. Daily coffee group meetings in the morning and community dinners have become a big part of this rural lifestyle, locals say.
It is about to get busier as Te Uku farmer Glenn Neems has rezoned about 43ha of his 250ha rural farmland to rural residential land - allowing for up to 34 lifestyle sections of varied sizes to be developed.
The entire block of land is up for sale and currently seeking expressions of interest from developers.
Neems has owned the land for about a decade and has been in the process of rezoning some of it for the last six years.
He said the community was involved in the process from the get go and while a small settlement already existed, this was adding to it.
“The community here is quite fragmented, it's bigger lifestyle blocks quite spread out where as this is going to bring a feeling of closeness.”
A proposed cycle and walkway project to Te Uku Country School, to be undertaken by the developer, would link residents to the year 1-8 primary school.
The school had seen a 65% increase in student numbers over the past four years, according to a Bayleys’ sales advertisement.
Bayleys director of Commercial, David Cashmore, said they were targetting developers who would take it through the stage of cutting the block of land into smaller lifestyle sections.
Proximity to Hamilton, NZ’s fastest-growing city, was attracting local developers as well as those from outside the region and country.
“A lifestyle development like this makes good sense because it's of a scale that will appeal to a wider number of developers rather than a super big project that can only appeal to a few bigger developers.
“And because it's lifestyle, you're not so reliant upon services that are supplied by the local council.”
The location was gaining popularity because it offered a “tranquil rural lifestyle that’s handy to Raglan and Hamilton,” he added.
“You get the best of all worlds… live the good life, enjoy the benefits of a good school, rural residential community, travel to work in Hamilton if you need to or Raglan for swimming in the morning or evening.”
Cashmore said people were already inquiring for individual lifestyle sections.
With interest rates heading down, Cashmore said market confidence was up.
There was also some pent up interest from developers who had not purchased over the softer period, he added.
“It’s a small rural residential community right now, but my understanding is that anything that has come to the market has sold well and it always does in and around Te Uku.”
Cashmore said while there would be more lifestyle residential plots on the market over time, there was never going to be an oversupply of opportunities as rezoning was a challenging process.
Te Uku Store had started selling hot food, bait, and animal feed in addition to groceries to meet the growing demand from locals.
A kitchen fit-out at the shop was currently underway to sell fish and chips.
Staffer Lisa Mills was elated about the big development coming next door as it would increase her property value.
Mills said housing was very restricted in Raglan, “mostly due to Airbnbs”, and there was very little to buy or rent.
More houses in Te Uku would help with that situation, she said.
Local resident David Icke said people in town enjoyed a “pretty relaxed and cool lifestyle”.
“The old Te Uku coffee roast is a bit of an institution, and is always very busy.”
His daughter, Marina, went to the local Te Uku primary school. Every morning locals from Te Uku and Raglan would meet for coffee after dropping their kids at school.
“Quarter to nine, everyone's here.
“There's the same group of us… local farmers and some retirees that come here every morning and drink coffee.
“Over in the hall they have community pot luck dinners and stuff like that, it's an active little community.”
Icke said development was good as Raglan needed more houses and locals to make businesses sustainable all year round.
“We're heavily summer dependent and there’s massive population growth and obviously businesses flourish, but winter is tough for these guys.
“So if we can get a bit more permanent population out here, it's going to help all the businesses to be viable all year round.”
Max Power, who works at Te Uku Roast Office, said “life’s good” there.
“It's got a lot busier, traffic coming in and out, I guess developments in Raglan brings more tradies from Hamilton and then more people living here and travel to Hamilton for work.”