Kapiti does well in growth – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Sunday 3rd May

Hard Times – is the answer in the soil?

Kapiti and Horowhenua are doing well in productivity and employment growth, according to a recent BERL (Business and Economic Research Ltd) survey. And growth could be even better if the LTCCP (Long Term Council Community Plan) is any indication.

In the heftiest of the plan’s three-parts, 500 pages, “leadership areas for the KCDC” kick off with “exploring the local food economy”.

Kapiti residents are increasingly interested in food and its costs for households, states the plan, adding that the district has a major resource in food and fibre production from its rural lands.

KCDC has started discussing the idea of a local food economy with groups in Otaki . . . “to increase the breadth of the Otaki economy and reconnect the town to its rural hinterland”.

Older residents will remember Otaki being the vegetable garden of the region — and it is still a very active contributor to the market.

Takeaway copies of the LTCCP became available during the past week. If you wish to make submissions do it soon: They close on 14 May.

STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.