Ōmokoroa from the Air: Alf Rendell and the Unsworth Subdivisions

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Today, it is difficult to imagine Ōmokoroa Point as it appeared in the early 1950s. Streets lined with homes, holiday houses, reserves and community facilities now occupy land that was once largely open farmland. The Unsworth Subdivisions at Ōmokoroa from the 1950s through to the 1970s, represent an important chapter in the transformation of the peninsula from farmland to a seaside community.

In 2004, Tauranga City Libraries received a donation from Helen Unsworth, containing records, files, plans and hand-coloured photographs relating to her parents' Ōmokoroa subdivisions over the years. These materials provide a valuable record of the area's growth and the role the Unsworth family played in shaping the community that exists today.

Aerial of Ōmokoroa 1956 (hand-coloured photograph by Alf Rendell) - Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries  Photo 21-1307

(The Unsworth farm is across the centre of the aerial photo, showing the new road and its subdivision and butting onto Gerald and Myrtle Crapp's farm on the actual point). 

A Peninsula on the Cusp of Change

Allan and Nelle Unsworth purchased 68 acres on Ōmokoroa Point in 1953, and over the following decades, gradually subdivided the property, creating residential sections. The Unsworth's property originally extended across much of the width of the peninsula, bounded by neighbouring farms and framed by steep coastal land and beaches. It was adjacent to the houses at Ōmokoroa Beach.

When Allan and Nelle Unsworth purchased the farm from Ira and Jean Thomas, their intention was not to create a residential subdivision but to establish a model farm on what was regarded as some of the district's highest-quality farmland. However, circumstances beyond their control changed those plans. In 1954, major slips below the farm damaged the only road providing access to the Point, making it necessary to construct a new road through their property. Permission was subsequently granted to subdivide land along the new roadway. Then, in 1956, the Education Department purchased five acres from the upper part of the farm for the construction of a new school.

Aerial of Ōmokoroa 1956- Photo 21-1305

The new superior stretch of road opened the peninsula to easier access and made new subdivisions more economically viable. What began as a practical response to changing circumstances, evolved into one of the largest private subdivisions undertaken in New Zealand at the time. However, the development attracted the attention of Inland Revenue, which argued that the subdivision profits should be taxed. It was a test case for New Zealand to establish a new legal principle. Allan spent years fighting what he considered an unjust assessment,ending up with the Inland Revenue dropping the case in 1965.

As happened in many coastal communities around New Zealand during the post-war decades, improved roads, increasing car ownership and growing interest in holiday living and retirement, including from overseas, created demand for coastal sections beyond the main urban centres.

Archival records held in Pae Korokī (Ams 259) document this evolving process through plans, financial papers, and promotional material spanning the 1950s to the 1970s. These include detailed survey plans for successive subdivision stages, illustrating how the land was incrementally opened up for development.

 

Subdivision Plans over the years - Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 259

Marketing the Coastal Dream

The Unsworth subdivisions were notable not only for the number of sections created, but also for the sophistication of their marketing. Sections were promoted through newspaper advertising, printed brochures and even screen advertising at Tauranga's Odeon Theatre in Elizabeth Street, stating: "You've seen the rest — now buy the best."  Demonstrating his entrepreneurial spirit, Allan Unsworth also, promoted the subdivision from the driver's seat, using his car as a mobile advertisement to attract potential purchasers.

Reg Ellis and Allan with Reg's Kingfish, 1969 (Helen Unsworth Collection). At 13 Coppelia Avenue, Ōmokoroa Point, new house with farmland in the background and tractor shed on other side of fence. The tractor shed is still in use at the Ōmokoroa Settlers' Hall.

For many New Zealand families, the newly created sections offered a rare opportunity to own a piece of waterfront peninsula living at a time when coastal property was still within reach of ordinary households. The prospect of easy access to the harbour's fishing grounds was a major attraction. Fishing, being bountiful in those days, was a huge drawcard to the area - there was the wharf and a slipway for boat maintenance. 

What set Ōmokoroa apart from many other seaside settlements was Allan Unsworth's vision for the development. He was determined that the area would become a community of permanent homes rather than a collection of holiday baches. To maintain this standard, he encouraged prospective purchasers to build substantial houses and, if that did not suit their plans, he would direct them instead to the more affordable subdivisions emerging at Pāpāmoa at the same time. This approach helped shape the character of Ōmokoroa as a residential community rather than simply a seasonal holiday destination.

 

Cutting from Bay of Plenty Times advertisement for sections being sold by Allan Unsworth in Ōmokoroa - Tauranga City Libraries Ams 259

Alf Rendell's Aerial Vision

A distinctive feature of the Unsworth Subdivision was its innovative use of aerial photography. Renowned Tauranga photographer, Alfred Hugh (Alf) Rendell, captured images of Ōmokoroa at a time when aerial imagery was still relatively uncommon in local real estate promotion. 
 
Allan Unsworth commissioned a series of six small hand-coloured aerial images of the peninsula over the years. These photographs were not merely promotional; each purchaser received an image of the peninsula, creating a personal and tangible connection to their property and the community around them.

 

The Unsworth's homestead, "Kaharoa" (now 61 Ōmokoroa Road) - Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries -  Photo 21-1269

A Lasting Legacy

This combination of careful planning and visual storytelling made the Unsworth Subdivision unique. Today, the surviving plans and photographs provide a valuable record of a formative moment in Ōmokoroa’s development.

Maihi Te Poria and the Wairoa Road

It’s easy to assume, at this distance of time, that in the years after raupatu [1] land ownership was steadily and seamlessly transferred to pākehā settlers. Certainly the end result is confronting.

Wairoa Road, 2024

As well as the large parcels of land permanently and actually confiscated, there were, particularly in Tauranga Moana, areas returned (ie. initially confiscated and then given back) and reserved (ie. put aside from the start as allocations to support the local Māori population).  And yet, by the turn of the twenty-first century, of those returned or reserved areas of Māori land, 80 percent had been alienated [2].

Your writer makes absolutely no claim to any expertise in the field of Māori land law [3]. But I do know a bit about Te Puna. This is the story of how Maihi te Poria stood up for himself in, it has to be said, somewhat mysterious circumstances. How did he persuade the Tauranga County Council to pay him a levy of £2 a year for the use of his land for a road from 1907 until at least 1910?

I tell this from a pākehā perspective.  Although I have been in touch with some of Maihi te Poria’s whānau, and they have seen this account, my sources are confined to the public record, narrow, but authentic [4] except for one excursion into the unconfirmed space of FamilySearch, “a service provided by the Jesus Christ Church of Latter Day Saints”, all rights reserved.  Out of respect for the family as well as a careful reading of the website’s terms of use, I do not quote from its content.  I do however offer the link [5] in case my small contribution encourages others to explore the personal history of the Maihi, also known as Marsh, family.

There could be many others in the story. We were unable to identify any Māori ratepayer names at all in the 1909 rating records for Tauranga County. But it is clear that those Māori with interests in such land as was left to them after raupatu were not only wary of officialdom. They were also willing to take it on. At a Council meeting held on 5 April 1910 correspondence was tabled from (if I have read the handwriting correctly) one Riripete Piahana, “re road through Section 116A to 116B Judea”.  The response was, to say the least, testy:  “It was resolved that the Native be informed that the Council has no idea of taking the land referred to.”  The Council moved on to deal with (either) Tinii or Tinui Waata Ririnui’s letter “re rates” and resolved to refer the matter to the District Valuer [6].  Nevertheless, Messrs Piahana and Ririnui thought it at least worthwhile to try. Maihi te Poria, of the Ngāti Pango hapū, similarly tried. And he won.

Map of Ngati Pango lands, Figure 24, Kahotea, D

Ngati Pango, along with Ngai Te Rangi, “lands extend on the west side of the Wairoa River, to Poripori, Te Irihanga and Te Whakamarama with the Pirirakau [7]”. Under the Tauranga District Lands Act 1867, Commissioners determined Lot 182, on the bend of the river and including the mill pond, to be Ngati Pango (shown in the 1867 map as allocated to one Hori Ngatai [8]). But by 1919 a Maori Land Court notice in the New Zealand Gazette [9] records Maihi te Poria making “application for partition” of that lot, which has to be [10] the land that was traversed by an informal road (or track) used by the Wairoa settlers.

Presumably they had acquired their land on the presumption that there was access to it by way of the river, readily navigable as far inland as Ruahihi. But roads, as every colonial administration came to appreciate, were much more convenient than waterways. The Wairoa been bridged for decades by 1907. It’s not hard to imagine that the casual assumption [11] that trespass was permissible across Maori land, to use a modern idiom, ground Maihi’s gears. We know he became familiar with the law of trespass because of a 1909 notice placed in the Bay of Plenty Times [12], warning “any person trespassing upon my land at Poripori, with or without dog or gun will be prosecuted”.

So we know that Maihi te Poria was willing to tangle with the colony’s institutions of land tenure. The patient reader, having been served a hefty dose of context, surely now deserves to know the mystery at the heart of this essay.

At the County Councillors’ meeting held 1 October 1907 [13], almost straight after the vigilantly critical George Vesey Stewart had asked, with urgency, for a report on “the necessary repairs to be made on the Wairoa Bridge”…

“The Chairman reported that he had made arrangements with a native named Maihi te Poria agreeing to allow the Public to use the road through his property from the Wairoa Bridge to the road leading to Settlers properties on the Wairoa river for the sum of £2 per annum.”

We are not told how this was received. It’s easy to imagine some consternation in the Council Chamber. But this is yet another piece in the uneven jigsaw of Māori land appropriation post-raupatu. The political climate was just a bit more constrained at the time. For whatever reason – memories of the 1886 Barton inquiry, the current influence of the Stout-Ngata Commission [14] - there was a significant fall-off in Māori land alienation around Tauranga in the first decade of the twentieth century [15]. 

All we know is that Councillor McEwen proposed, incorporating a shrewd nod in the direction of Councillor Stewart, who seconded, “that the Chairman’s actions be approved and that the Engineer be requested to inspect the road with a view to its acquisition under the Public Works Act.” [16]

The approval lasted until 1910, when Maihi, for reasons undisclosed, advised the Council that he intended to close the road through his property. For reasons also undisclosed, the Council resolved to leave the matter “in the hands of the Chairman” [17].

The County Chairman, J.A.M. Davidson, must have known Maihi te Poria quite well. They were near-neighbours, Davidson holding an extensive property just over the hill, along the Hakao [18]. And, as my reading of the Minute Books made clear, there were many instances when the Council trusted his personal capabilities to smooth conflicts and find practical solutions. At any rate, the matter at this point fades from the record. I wish I knew if Maihi te Poria’s toll earned him more than £6, and how, eventually, the road connection between the bridge and “Mr Perston’s property[19]” was formalised.  Semi-acquiescent takings under the Public Works Act were, and indeed are still, not unknown to officialdom.

However it happened, the public road still winds up the hill from the bank of the Wairoa River. And Maihi te Poria had other, more extensive, land to make a go of, behind the Minden hill at Poripori. For a long time, the only way he could get to it was over the land on which he had once successfully charged a toll.

References

Belgrave, M., Young, Heinz and Belgrave, D., A: Report to the Waitangi Tribunal WAI 215 #T16a.  Tauranga Māori Land Alienation, A Quantitative Overview, 1886-2006, Final Report
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_93401142/Wai%20215%2C%20T016%20(a).pdf

Kahotea, Des Tatana: Report to the Waitangi Tribunal commissioned for Wai 42A, a claim lodged by Ngāti Kahu in 1986 (Wai 27)
https://forms.justice.govt.nz/search/Documents/WT/wt_DOC_94031141/Wai%20215%2C%20A037%20(a).pdf

O’Malley, V: The Aftermath of the Tauranga Raupatu, 1864-1981, an overview report commissioned by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust, June 1995
https://www.academia.edu/2993300/The_Aftermath_of_the_Tauranga_Raupatu_1864_1981_Crown_Forestry_Rental_Trust_June_1995_222pp

Notes

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[1] For these purposes, “raupatu” encompasses both the consequences of the Katikati and Te Puna purchase up to 1886, and the post-1886 acquisitions under a number of statutory measures including the Public Works Act in its various iterations.

[2] Belgrave et al, p 12

[3] In this blog I have relied on the far greater scholarship in the sources listed at the end of the essay.

[4] My thanks to Glenda McDell and the team at Western Bay of Plenty District Council for providing desk space and access to the Minute Books and rating records of the Tauranga County Council.

[5] https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/L5RQ-18C/wiremu-henare-marsh-te-poria-1884-1958

[6] The correspondence is minuted at pages 357 and 358 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[7] Kahotea, D., p. 9.  This detailed study of the three hapū of Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Rangi and Ngāti Pango has been invaluable, as has the input from the Maihi Te Poria whanu, whose whakapapa is quite distinct from that of Maihi Haki.

[8] Hori Ngatai’s role in the Ngati Pango story is a compromised one, too complicated for a place in this story.  Readers are referred to Des Kahotea’s report for further particulars.

[9] http://www.nzlii.org/nz/other/nz_gazette/1919/47/71.pdf

[10] Based on the writer’s personal knowledge of the area.  For instance, I know just where the Perston property was (adjacent to the present Oliver Road).

[11] Or assumptions based on usual terms of  Court orders?  See O’Malley, p. 190: “The right to run roads through Maori lands was included in grants made pursuant to the decisions of the [Native Land] Court…”

[12] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19090319.2.50.3

[13] Page 240 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[14] O’Malley, Part B, section 3; p94 and p.194, citing ‘Native Lands and Native -Land Tenure: Interim report of Native Land Commission, on Native Lands in the County of Tauranga, AJHR 1908, G-1K https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1908-I.2.4.3.15   .

[15] Belgrave et al, p 30

[16] Page 240 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[17] P. 351 of the Minute Book recording proceedings of the Tauranga County Council for 1907-1911.

[18] Readers may be interested in the essay on the Hakao, Friday 14 January 2022, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/01/te-punas-lost-watercourse.html

[19] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19071106.2.40

 

The Metal Road to Ohauiti

by Guest Author Lucy Mullinger

View from the Amy’s new home, 1970s

“We were just out in the sticks, we really were”, or that’s how it felt for Trudie Amy, when she was persuaded to move to a rural section in Ohauiti just over 40 years ago. Newly married, Trudie and her husband Kenneth had originally planned to buy land in Judea, but changed their minds when they came across the property situated on the Poike block, originally known as Lot 3. (i)

“I told Ken I wasn’t living on a metal road but after a bit he persuaded me and we ended up paying $21,000 for a quarter acre and the house.” At the time, the $11 per week mortgage seemed steep to the couple. “We spoke to the lawyer and said there was no way we could pay it off, but he said ‘you’ll cope’ and we did.” The mortgage rate increased over the years but the couple managed to pay the lot off in 15 years, thanks to Trudy’s job  as a machinist for Expozay and Ken’s expertise as a metal worker for Forlong and Maisey. (ii)

Ken and some workmates at Forlong and Maisey

One of Ken’s favourite pastimes was driving about in his Hillman Hunter. “Poike Road was only about 10 foot wide at the time and my Hillman often skidded off the road. Whenever it did, I would contact the council and a grader would come in and sort out the road so it was drivable again.” When their only son started to learn to drive, he would take the Hillman up to Hollister Lane, which at the time was a gravel road with no houses on it.

Motorcycling in more carefree times

 Trudie also has fond memories of their son working in Maungatapu and flying home on his motorbike. “It was just a quick drive from Maungatapu, around in an S shape to Ohauiti, down the gravel road.” They also enjoyed spending a day trip at the strawberry farm situated in the dell on Hammond Street, where a main highway now travels through. "Everything was so different,” says Trudie, “it was all rural with views as far as you could see.”

The house they fell in love with over 40 years ago was, at one point, nestled amongst a working farm, with horses grazing next door. “They often were caught chewing on our trees,” Trudie laughs. At the top of the driveway, there was a section filled with plum trees. “The plums were huge and so delicious,” says Trudie. “Sadly, once the land got sold off the trees were removed.”

As their son grew up, the family began to welcome grandchildren, nephews and nieces to their home. “There were always children in and out of the house.”

Shopping centre floor

Over twenty years ago, land was earmarked for a shopping centre and Trudie remembers taking the children to visit the site, which was surrounded by farmland at the time. Ohauiti is loosely translated, by The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage to mean “place of little wind” and, while it did boast a school at one point, the suburb is now home to subdivisions and farms as you travel further up to rural Ohauiti.

Top end of Poike Road, in the 1970s (above) and now (below)

Images courtesy of the Amy family

References

(i) Charles Hollister-Jones bought 80 acres of Ohauiti land, under Lot 3 with William White, in 1939. According to the book Ohauiti, 1878 - 1980 the Hollister -Jones family originally paid ten shillings per acre.

(ii) Exposay was a swimwear business, which was founded in Mount Maunganui in the late 1960s and Forlong and Maisey, which was founded in Hamilton, employed metalworkers from its factory in Gate Pa. A keen metal worker and engineer, Ken spent many years working for the New Zealand brand metal working business, then moved to Fisher Vogue Lighting at Mount Maunganui, when Forlong and Maisey closed.