According to local media outlet The Post, a company owned by a Chinese developer that plans to carry out large-scale residential development has now been liquidated.
The project, named Edin Rotokauri, is located northwest of Hamilton and started in early 2022 under the leadership of the MADE Group, with its subsidiary Rotokauri North Holdings Ltd being developed and the company director Charles Ma.
According to the original plan, a new community with 2,000 residential units will be built, with its own community center, a primary school and a retirement village.
The site is on 137 hectares of farmland approved for re-planning by an independent commission, just 2km from Hamilton's largest shopping centre and the Rotokauri transport hub.
The first batch of 72 land parcels commenced for sale in November 2022, and land works may have already begun at that time.
However, according to the NZ Government Gazette, the official newspaper of the New Zealand government, the company is now in liquidation.
The application was made by engineering planning consultancy Bloxam, Burnett and Olliver Limited, and on 22 March the Auckland High Court declared the company to be liquidated, appointing Steven Khov and Kieran Jones of Khov Jones as liquidators.
Khov confirmed that they are working on the liquidation, but said it is still early and that they are working to gather the necessary information and will give the first liquidation report within 20 working days of the court appointment, and he will not comment on this until then.
According to reports, the company in charge of the project, Rotokauri North Holdings Ltd, and the director of the MADE Group, which holds the company, are both Charles Ma.
A graduate of the University of Auckland's School of Civil Engineering and Business School, Ma has been promoting sustainable communities for many years.
At the beginning of the project, he said that this medium-density development will be different from all of Hamilton's previous developments, with 50% of the land reserved for community parks and nature reserves, plans to build 200~300 affordable housing units, and will also be developed in partnership with local Hamilton builders.
At the moment, the future of the Edin Rotokauri development project is unclear.
This week, a reporter from Waikato Times visited the site of the project and found that although some trees had been cut down, there was no sign of construction.
Gerald Rundle, director of corporate projects at Bayleys, revealed that they had previously been involved in the promotion and sale of Edin Rotokauri, but the project was currently under contract and doing due diligence, so they could not comment further.
Edin Rotokauri's website is still accessible, but clicking on the social media link redirects you to MADE Group, and there hasn't been a new post since mid-last year.
The Post reported that Ma is in the spotlight for its planned development of a 3,000-unit, NZ$1 billion project called Auranga on an 83-hectare plot in Auckland's Drury West.
Ma had hoped that KiwiRail's new train station would be closer to the planning centre of the development, but in July last year he lost a lawsuit over the location of the KiwiRail station.
Previously, Ma was a project manager and managing director at Lily Investment Company, where she was responsible for the development of the Sugar Tree tenements in Auckland's CBD.