Rural Farmland With Residential Subdivision Potential At Scale Is Placed On The Market For Sale

A substantial farm block overlooking an 18-hole golf course on the outskirts of a prosperous and ever-expanding coastal town – and identified for potential large scale residential property development - has been placed on the market for sale.

The approximately 188-hectare farm is situated on the south-eastern boundary of Thames – the gateway to the Coromandel Peninsula. The northern portion of the existing dairying unit sits alongside Thames Golf Club, while the property’s western boundary has an extensive road frontage onto one of Thames’ main arterial routes linking it with the Hauraki Plains.

The land sits between various residential, lifestyle and commercial zonings, and is currently zoned for rural use under the Thames-Coromandel District Council plan. However, there is an existing council consent in place permitting the two-staged development of the golf course boundary land into nine large lifestyle-sized residential sections.

In addition, the Thames-Coromandel District Council has also identified the address should be rezoned for future medium density housing under its long-term Thames and Surrounds Spatial Plan - to sustain not only the area’s growing population, but also to address the current shortage of new build houses in the locale.

Thames-Coromandel District Council’s spatial plan highlights 9528 Paeroa Kopu Road as being what it calls “un-constrained land (developable)” – adding: ”This land has the most development potential. The spatial plan should locate growth within these areas.”

“Families are finding it hard to find homes in Thames due to the low supply of new homes,” said the council’s long-term planning report.

“Thames is the economic powerhouse of the Coromandel, but our businesses cannot recruit workers due to a lack of housing. Some 46 percent of our district’s jobs are in Thames, but only 36 percent of the population. Well-paying jobs are going unfilled, and employees are commuting from Hamilton, Paeroa, Huntly and surrounding towns.”

In a move aimed at addressing Thames’s housing issues, the 188-hectare property at 9528 Paeroa Kopu Road in Thames is now being jointly marketed for sale by tender through Bayleys Thames and Bayleys Silverdale Commercial, with the tender closing on July 28. Salespeople Chris Bayley, Ben Clare and Graeme Perigo said it was rare to find a consented development of this size in the Hauraki Plains – with the potential to create even more sections at scale in the future.

“The property’s topography features a slightly elevated ridgeline running through the middle of the location - overlooking the flats below on one side, and the gently sloping contour bordering the golf course on the other,” said Clare.

“Within the upper portion of the farm are several valleys of mature trees – which add another dimension to the potential for creating lifestyle block sections.

“On the lower flat land portion of the farm, there is already an extensive internal network of partially metaled stock tracks efficiently linking the existing paddocks with the centrally-located milking shed.

“These could form the ready-made basis of any future roading connectivity within the residential overlay, with the potential to add more roads subject to final civil plans and the number of potential new sections to be created in any multitude of sizes and configurations.”

Perigo said it was highly encouraging that the council’s spatial plan had clearly identified the need for more housing at scale in and around Thames and had simultaneously come up with a solution – freeing up the opportunity to strategically convert farmland into residential enclaves based on a high degree of planning and forethought.

An electricity substation is located close to the Paeroa Kopu Road property -ticking one of the utilities boxes needed when planning services infrastructure for a new residential locale.

“With consent already in place for the creation of nine lifestyle blocks on the northern portion of property, there is the potential to undertake a staged development of the greater farm over an extended time frame to deliver a long-term cash flow. Of course, there is also the option of developing the medium density portion of the farm simultaneously over a much shorter timeframe,” he said.

Perigo said that as a working dairy farm with full milk shed, effluent treatment, and stock management infrastructure in place, there was the potential to derive income by leasing the property to a sharemilker while any rezoning application was being considered. The property includes a comfortable main three-bedroom homestead, and a well-maintained second three-bedroom staff dwelling.

With a population of approximately 8,000 residents, Thames is an hour’s commute from both Auckland and Hamilton, and 90 minutes’ drive to Tauranga.

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