Deadline for cleaning up Kerikeri's controversial Bing property expires

A council deadline for cleaning up part of a controversial, weed-infested development in central Kerikeri expired on Saturday.

Consent conditions for developing the so-called Bing property - a 23-hectare block of land bordered by Kerikeri River, the town centre and the Heritage Bypass - required the landowner to take away rubbish, deal with safety hazards such as holes and unstable trees, remove weeds, and carry out a replanting programme.

However, those conditions applied only to one small area alongside the river.

The 20-metre-wide esplanade reserve connects public land along the Heritage Bypass and the Fairy Pools Recreation Reserve, totalling only about a third of a hectare.

The esplanade reserve is to be vested in the Far North District Council as public land.

When RNZ visited the site on Friday work had started to clear slash from the Fairy Pools reserve, but it was not clear if any work had taken place on the recently created esplanade reserve.

The consent conditions and deadline were revealed in a council response to a Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act (LGOIMA) request.

The Bing property was previously covered in 90-year-old gum and redwood trees, averaging 47 metres tall, with some small pockets of native bush and undergrowth.

The trees were felled last year and the land was subdivided into five "super-lots", with the smaller sixth lot set aside as a reserve.

However, since then the property had been overrun by invasive weeds, in particular tobacco weed or woolly nightshade.

The plant is described by the Northland Regional Council as highly invasive with potential adverse health effects for people with respiratory conditions.

In mid-October landowner Jamie Peters told RNZ a drone spraying operation targeting the weeds was due to start in about two weeks' time.

The property was currently back on the market but Peters said that was to flush out potential joint-venture partners.

Heritage New Zealand raised concerns with the Far North District Council about what it said was the risk of slash from the development being washed into the Kerikeri River and slamming into the country's oldest building, Kemp House, just downstream.

Also in response to the LGOIMA request, the district council said it had "investigated the concerns raised by Heritage New Zealand and referred those concerns to the property owner for action".

The developer had subsequently advised the district council that "clearance of the slash and stumps would be completed".

The esplanade reserve did not continue along the rest of the river towards the town centre.