Te Puna Business Park FAQs

The land is zoned Industrial, within a specific Te Puna Business Park Structure Plan area which is subject to bespoke visual amenity, landscaping and character, and stormwater and traffic mitigation measures relative to the surrounding context. This is to achieve a lower level of impact and ensure adverse environmental effects are avoided, remedied or mitigated.
 
The wider Te Puna Business Park industrial area comprises approximately 23ha of land on the southern side of Te Puna Station Road, and 7.2ha of land on the northern side. Surrounding land beyond the business park is zoned Rural.
 
All tenants on the TPIL (Te Puna Industrial Ltd) site will comply with the consent requirements including noise, visual and landscape mitigation, building heights, stormwater and other environmental requirements.
The business park is needed as a home for a diverse range of light businesses supporting exporters and local rural businesses. These will include, offices, a training centre, workshops, a base for refrigeration engineers, a container hire and sales yard, and a self store facility. A small stock of containers to support local exporters will be held on site stacked up to a maximum of 3 high.
 
A range of other businesses will operate from the site such as garden supply, landscaping, and a container cafe.     
This location was zoned industrial in 2005 and is the correct location for a range of low intensity businesses providing essential services to local exporters as well as servicing other local needs. 
 
The development is a significant long term investment in the region, designed from the ground up to minimise any adverse effects while at the same time creating well paid jobs and amenity value.      

The total TPIL site area is 12.16ha.  The establishment of the large wet lands area, (with public walk and cycle way), site landscaping, infrastructure to improve water management and internal road ways reduce the areas occupied by businesses to less than 9ha. 
Enabling consents were applied for by TPIL Jan 2022 and granted by WBDC commissioner mid 2025. These consents were modest requests related to landscaping, onsite water management and changes to the site's internal roading. The granting of the consents by WBDC has been appealed to the environment court by a special interest group. This process will be worked through in the months ahead.  
 
Our hope is the first stage will commence in 2026 comprising of extensive landscaping and environmental enhancement work such as bunds and setbacks from road frontage as well as ponds and other features that enhance both environmental outcomes and visual appeal and cultural values. Internal road construction, and filling and contouring around the road to enable permitted industrial development to operate is also proposed.
 
Later stages and complete development of the site would not occur until sometime in the future.  
Consultation and engagement has been undertaken and is ongoing with hapū and iwi with a registered interest in the area recognising the interest of mana whenua and tangata whenua groups.
 
In addition to this consultation has also taken place with infrastructure providers, consenting authorities, and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. 
It is envisaged that industries supporting primary produce exporters will be the eventual primary occupants. Permitted activities at the Te Puna Business Park include: 
 
  • Industrial (manufacturing, processing, packaging or dismantling activities, engineering workshops etc.)
  • Storage and warehousing
  • Building and construction wholesalers (including minor ancillary retail)
  • Depots
  • Retail outlets for primary produce with a maximum floor area of 100m2
  • Garden centres and plant nurseries (including ancillary cafes not exceeding a maximum floor area of 100 m2)
  • Farm vehicle and machinery sales
  •  
Stage 1 seeks to accommodate predominantly yard-based tenants in accordance with the permitted uses above.
The structure plan requires development to progress in a sequence of stages, with specific landscaping, stormwater and roading mitigation requirements to be met before any industrial development, in accordance with the rules of the District Plan.
 
The structure plan also requires the delivery of landscaping and stormwater management strategies and integrated sound mitigation measures. This includes periphery and roadscape planting, and the protection of an overland flow path.

The traffic impacts have been comprehensively considered as per the commissioners reports. Vehicle activity will include car's, utes, and trucks. In respect of the ContainerCo businesses, the TPIL site will see 30-40 truck visits per day. An EV charger will be established on site and used by one or two trucks. As per the 2005 Environmental court decision there are 2600 vehicle movements per day permitted for the entire industrial zone prior to the completion of Takitimu North Link

In regards to noise, all tenants will comply with district plan and consent requirements. Lighting is shaded and directed to avoid adverse effects.
The site will enable ContainerCo to relocate non-intense operations, many of which do not need to be near a port such as offices, training centre, container hire and sales team, a small warehouse, a base for a refridgerated engineering team as well as a small satellite site for container upgrades. 
 
ContainerCo will hold a small supply of containers (expected to be up to 300 containers) for kiwifruit growers and packers to cope with summer harvest demands. In addition a small stock of containers perhaps 50 will be upgraded and tested prior to delivery to primary produce exporters, a stock of containers of up to 30 will be held for hire and sales. 
 
There are no plans for this site to become a container terminal. Containers on site may be stacked up to three-high. This is a total stack height of 7.8m for standard height containers and 8.7m for high cube containers This is generally consistent with the 9m permitted height of buildings. Screening and landscaping will mitigate visual impacts from stored containers.

Hours of operation will be a maximum of 7am -6.30pm, Monday to Saturday.
Single and double truck-and-trailer vehicles will access the site to pick up and drop off containers, in addition to light vehicles for technical and office staff.
 
No lighting structures are proposed. ContainerCo will comply with the noise limits applicable to the industrial land and the expected noise generated would not be unreasonable.

There are no known biosecurity risks. Containers arriving at ContainerCo Site at Te-Puna have been inspected at the port of entry, as required by the Ministry of Primary Industry regulations. Any cleaning of containers may involve washing activity with any water or detergent applied to this use contained and treated.  
The business park concept was initiated 20 years ago to meet growth in many sectors such as the Kiwifruit sector across the Bay of Plenty which is now more important than ever as exports have increased and so has growth at the Port of Tauranga, which is now the largest port in New Zealand.
 
It also enables ContainerCo to free up capacity at it's core Mt Maunganui and Sulphur Point facilities and assist exporters to match their pack timelines with shipping timelines.    

Noise levels will comply with District Plan requirements. It is not planned to work under lights.  Any lighting, say for security purposes, will be local to an occupied area and shielded to avoid light wash. 
No, proposed stormwater and waste-water networks will be self-sufficient. Water supply, electricity and communications infrastructure connections can be made and serviced by the adjacent/supplied networks in the area.
  • Better district stormwater control
  • Recreational wet lands and cycleways
  • Local services available to the wider community
  • Intersection upgrade
  • Increase provision of additional planting