Raglan’s latest subdivision comes with a brand new bridge

For many holidaymakers a trip to Raglan wasn’t complete without a quick jaunt across the Opotoru Road walk bridge.

The wooden walk bridge is now gone, replaced by a two-lane traffic bridge, courtesy of Raglan’s new housing development.

The $12 million Rangitahi Bridge, which shares its name with the subdivision it connects to, was blessed during a karakia shortly after dawn on Tuesday.

“I’m grateful to be here because standing here means so much to me in terms of genealogy and history,” kaumatua Russell Riki said while standing on the new bridge.

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“It’s appropriate that we gathered at either end of the bridge and came together in the middle just as the bridge now connects Raglan to Rangitahi,” Riki said.

The Rangitahi project is a 550-section development across 117-hectares.

Rangitahi executive director David Peacocke said the first stage of the subdivision is expected to be completed in the next two weeks. It’s hoped titles will be issued in the next two months.

Of the lots sold to date, more than half have been bought by Raglan locals, Peacocke said.

“Rangitahi is an opportunity for locals to build new homes so it’s exciting for them to be able to get in here. Hopefully we’ve created a nice place to build.”

The private plan change allows for 550 residential sites to be built on the peninsula. That’s expected to take seven to eight years to finish.

Rangitahi Ltd paid for the new bridge and the upgrading of Opotoru Rd. The bridge will be vested to Waikato District Council within the next two months.

“People won’t be able to drive around the subdivision until the titles come through but the existing six residents on the peninsula will be driving across it [bridge] everyday so, for all intents and purposes, the bridge is open for them,” Peacocke said.

In a nod to the recent past, wooden beams from the old walk bridge were used to create four pou – with two erected at each end of the new bridge.

​Kawharu Greensill was one of five carvers to work on the pou.

“These four pou are about connection. Connecting people, connecting history, connecting cultures. They also act as kaitiaki [guardians] for the bridge,” Greensill said.

The pou are shaped like turuturu (traditional weaving pegs) and feature an aramoana design, symbolising the movement of the tides and the creatures that move with it.

“David [Peacocke] wanted to acknowledge the history of the old bridge of this place as being important so these pou all come from the old bridge,” Greensill said.

Riki said his ancestor Wahangaoterangi once had ownership over all the land on which Rangitahi is being developed.

“Thank you David for making this possible. I can not imagine what it’s taken you, mentally and spiritually, to get to this point in time,” Riki said.