Marae office block under way

Building work is under way on the first stage of the Arahura marae.
Foundations for the office, boardroom and ablution block for Te Runanga o Ngati Waewae will be completed by March next year.
Runanga chairman Francois Tumahai was on site yesterday viewing the progress of the long-awaited project, which will probably take three years to complete.
Once the first stage was complete, a new runanga-owned company, Poutini Environmental Ltd, would operate from the marae site, on the terrace, to roll out the next two stages — a kitchen and main dining facilities to be started by the end of 2011, and lastly the meeting house.
It will be Ngati Waewae’s first dedicated marae in over 140 years and will be able to sleep about 100 people.
“It’s very exciting to see it under way,” Mr Tumahai said. “It puts it all into perspective.”
The runanga had long outgrown the current marae at Arahura, which could sleep only 10 people.
“We have a base of about 5000 members but the core local base is around 50 people. But I’d imagine once this (marae) takes off, that will start to swell.
Everybody is quite excited because they’ve been hearing about it for the last 30 yearsm but now it is actually happening.”
Plans for the marae were unveiled in June 2007 and it was tentatively set to open in December 2008.
The runanga received a $900,000 funding boost towards the project from the Lotteries Marae Heritage facilities fund.
However, it will still have to contribute at least a third of the total cost of the $3.4 million project.
Mr Tumahai said the overall goal was to create a culture centre for the community, hosting school groups and activities.