Rapaki Farm lifestyle project shovel ready

From Shooting Butts Road to Te Muna Road, an enhanced walking track passes 39 lifestyle blocks.

Plans for a 39-lifestyle block subdivision behind Martinborough golf links are “shovel ready” _ with the contract to begin roading on the block signed and sealed, developer Murray Cole told The Star.

Power supply for the development has “also been contracted,” but the lifestyle blocks will not have water or sewerage connnections – “these are lifestyle blocks.” 

The project will include a “Te Muna Road – to town walk” which will link into the Rapaki Hillside Walk _ already listed as one of the country’s Top 10 leisure walks.

The plan is to sell the 39 rural lots for $1.2 million each, he said, with the project’s focus on complementing and enhancing the natural landscape.

Cole said an initial stage of the development will see 11 four-hectare blocks accessed from Shooting Butts Road go on the market in early spring – with four already pre-sold.

“They’re mostly four hectares with a few bigger ones up the top (of the landholding)  where there may be a luxury tree-top hotel,” he added.

“A big thing in Rapaki is we’re hoping to make the (public leisure) walk better … so you’ll be able to walk from Te Muna Road right down to Shooting Bucks Road (and) to the town – or you can ride your electric bike. 

“There’ll also be a cicuit so you can take your little dog and walk around … without impacting on the privacy of the homes.”

The first road will be one kilometer long to open up the middle blocks and it will roll out pretty fast by next summer, he said. The second road opens up about 12 to 15 lots.

There are four stages to the project _ with Te Muna Road, a stage where two large lots are sold already. Then there’s Stage 1 – some “11 lots up from Shooting Butts Road,” named as Rapaki Estate. Next is Rapaki Hills, a further 11 properties, then Rapaki Meadows, in effect Stage 4.

“Each is like a separate subdivision within a bigger subdivision,” he noted. “If I sell 39 lots, it will bring money into the district – and that’s what makes it prosperous – outside money.”

“Every one who goes up there comes away amazed.”

Cole said they wanted to provide a “handfull” of small one-hectare blocks, “that’s what people want, but the restrictions and rules of lifestyle development just prevented that.”

The roading and power installation should be “completed by Christmas, and (the first 11 blocks) sold.” 

A “bunch of sensible covenants” will help define the development, which “is not a gated etstate,” he said. ‘No, definitely it is not a gated estate, though we still want to make it private.” 

Cole wants to have “something close” to the golf club estate, “which has the arrival impression of being gated, it has grills without being gated. We want something closer to that than making a gated estate. I don’t like gated estates.”

Walkers will walk along outside boundaries of the properties, with privacy controlled by the four-hectare property sizes.

“It’s a family project _ the whole family is doing this as a project,” Cole said.

The company has hired “Grand Designs man Chris Moller” to supervise the overall development. 

Last November, Cole – who has helped to run the family-owned and operated Martinborough Hotel for the past 12 years – gained approval from South Wairarapa District Council to subdivide the property.

Although the estate has yet to be named, Cole is consulting SWDC’s Māori Standing Committee to use the name “Rapaki” (“hillside, slope, ascent” according to Te Aka Maori dictionary).