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From issue: Summer 2002

Mangakino: how much longer the poor man's Taupo?

by Kate Edwards

Mangakino is a town in a 1950s time warp; a remnant of the pressure-cooker expansion of post-war New Zealand as well preserved as if it were ladled into an Agee jar in mother's kitchen.

Mangakino's main street, 1969 Picture: NZ Herald

The town was the main base for construction of a chain of five power stations on the Waikato River. But, unlike other construction towns that sprang up to serve public works projects, Mangakino did not disappear once the job was finished. It clung on to the river flats where herds of wild horses kicked up storms of pumice dust when engineers arrived in 1946.A neat town was laid out with shopping centre, hospital, hall and cinema.

Free rental of a decent house was the lure for married men but workers wanted more in this isolated spot in the centre of the North Island.They had had their fill of the gambling and dull social life at other hydro projects, so formed a welfare association to run a unique self-funding sport and recreation programme.

Dam-builders from a score of nations pushed the town's population to 5500. However, they started moving out en masse in 1962 and with them went a chunk of the drive and spirit of a unique frontier community. Nearly half the 1100 standard wooden houses and hangar-like workshops and sawmills were uprooted and trucked to new projects or uses or just fell to vandals and decay..

Today, Mangakino has 1250 permanent residents. At the forefront is Tina Jakes, a 15-year resident who leads the Keep Mangakino Beautiful Campaign. The voluntary work, including planting of trees and gardens, has reaped national awards for Best Small Town; stamped out littering and tried to foster civic pride in keeping homes and gardens neat and tidy.

"The majority of houses are being looked after," Jakes says, "despite most households being on low incomes and money for home maintenance being short." Mangakino's public image suffered in 1999 when local constable Murray Stretch was murdered by a young burglar and three volunteer firemen committed arson. The spotlight played on a town that is poorer in many ways than it was half a century ago.

It has a dearth of job and training opportunities, a school roll of 200, no public transport and three out of four incomes are under $30,000.

Retired people are prominent about town. Steve Salter set up his cosy retirement home 19 years ago for about $10,000. He struggles against ill health to keep driving his car, a necessity when few of the shopping centre's 19 units are operating. Every week he must drive 35 kilometres to Tokoroa to do his banking and then on to the supermarket.

Still, the local businesses do not lack charm.The chemist has a hardware section out the back and an inn has been set up in the E-shaped maternity hospital, which once coped with a birthrate about five times that of the rest of New Zealand.

Investment is being made to renew infrastructure. Ian Coulter, who represents the area on the Taupo District Council, says a $700,000 sewage treatment plant opened in September using the latest technology to protect Lake Maraetai. He says the council plans to provide a skateboard park, improve footpaths and build a $500,000 replacement community centre.

The town is usually quiet because so many homes are used only for holidays. A house within walking distance of the lakeside golf course changes hands for as little as $35,000. The value has been appreciated by surprisingly few out-of-towners.

The Bennett and Morgan families, of Auckland, realised it five years ago and went shares in a 1948 Ministry of Works two-bedroom house that looks out at the lake and its hinterland of pine forests.

Bryan Bennett enthuses about his handy base to Lake Taupo and the forest walking tracks and fishing spots of the central volcanic plateau."There's wide open spaces. I can find a stream and play my bagpipes while my dog fossicks around. George Morgan is a gardener. The Mangakino soil is brilliant, free-draining and the spuds he grows are prized delicacies."

Mangakino was on land leased from the Mangakino Township Incorporation. This is an offshoot of Wairarapa-based iwi Ngati Kahungunu, who were granted a 12,000-hectare Mangakino block 80 years ago as compensation for surrendering rights in Lake Wairarapa to the Crown.

Major (his first name) Mason came north from Gladstone in 1945 to tame the wilderness into a dairy farm and he stayed. Although his iwi request his return to the Wairarapa, the 90-year-old says he wants to stay in Mangakino. "I love this place."

Mason recalls it took 25 years' work to realise the dream of a Mangakino marae for a district where 40 per cent of residents are Maori. It serves a mixture of tribes and is multicultural with Pakeha serving on the marae committee.

In September, township land affecting about 500 properties was sold for an undisclosed price. The value of the land was estimated at $2.5 million to $4 million. Successful tenderer Stuart Searle is a property developer who has been active in Auckland and Rotorua. With a "locals first" policy, Searle is offering homeowners a chance to buy the freehold of their sections.A further 80 sections that are not leased are also for sale.

He sees his venture as history repeating itself, pointing to the 1960s effort by the Auckland real estate firm Barfoot & Thompson to rescue Mangakino from becoming a ghost town.The task then was to sell empty and, sometimes, heavily vandalised houses. Bank managers were reluctant to lend on perpetual leasehold so the firm's Mangakino Land Development Company had to hold the mortgages itself.

The company's brochure said: "Mangakino, part of the Waikato, ideal for retirement or holiday homes, £500, two or three bedrooms, level fifth acre section ideal for gardening, overlooking the lake, close to shopping centre, bowling club, golf club, picture theatre, good trout fishing, swimming and sailing, easy drive to Hamilton, three and a half hours from Auckland. Finance arranged on £50 deposit with balance at £2 a week."

A substantial uptake of the Searle offer in 2002 has the potential to change the town, especially its neatly laid out rows of "Mangakino houses." This has drawn the interest of Aranne Donald, who is the heritage adviser for the Historic Places Trust lower northern region. She says Mangakino could easily be a location for a film set in the New Zealand of the 1950s.

The Trust has suggested to the Taupo District Council that it consider ways to preserve the town's special character. The town is the most intact example of infrastructure made for public works staff, Donald says.

Mangakino is also different because it was built to be a semi-permanent town and all its facilities were purpose-designed and the layout planned before building started. Living conditions had to be on a par with those of other towns if skilled hydro workers and their wives were to stay.

One reason for the 1950s time warp, Donald suspects, is that leasehold sections discouraged development. Offering freehold rights could remove the stumbling block to extensive renovation or replacement of the former Ministry of Works houses and introducing tight planning controls, as deemed appropriate by local people, could lessen the impact of modernisation.

Bryan Bennett says a zone to preserve character would be under pressure from residents who want to upgrade basic 49.2 square metre cottages to make them more spacious and warmer in winter. They would want to use modern and cheaper alternatives to original materials when adding rooms or insulating the shell. Cost of materials is an important factor because of the need to replace timber framing, window joinery and weatherboards
damaged by dry rot and borer.

Bennett fears that, once people can get title, pressure to build grander homes will follow. "This will ruin its low-key, laid-back quality and homogenous nature that I find appealing."

Already, the tree-lined streets overlooking the lake and golf course have some homes that are unrecognisable from those of 50 years ago. Conservatories, expanded living rooms and garages make for substantial homes and Lockwood buildings have appeared. The original Mangakino house had three main rooms with a separate kitchen, a washhouse and a bathroom. Later versions had larger windows,and walls and ceiling were lined with Pinex.

Historian Daphne Cotton keeps the local museum in a little white cottage in Rangatira St. Some townsfolk are now wondering whether it will be the only original Mangakino house left in a decade or two.

Kate Edwards is an Auckland writer.