Court action puts Stella Passage timing at risk

Five legal challenges target Stella Passage approval

Port of Tauranga (NZX:POT) is facing five legal challenges to the approval of its Stella Passage development, turning a recently secured consent into a court process. Three appeals and two judicial review applications have been filed against the fast-track expert panel decision issued on 7 September.

The disclosure follows the initial Stella Passage challenge, which involved an appeal and a judicial review application. The latest filing names Ngāi Te Rangi Settlement Trust, Ngāti Pūkenga, and a group comprising Ngāti Ranginui iwi and settlement entities among the appellants. The judicial review applications were filed by Ngāti Kuku Hapū Trust and Ngā Tai ki Mauao Manatōpū together with Ngā Hapū o Ngā Moutere Trust.

Port seeks a single urgent High Court hearing

Port of Tauranga says it intends to vigorously defend the approval and will ask the High Court to hear the appeals and judicial reviews together. The Fast-track Approvals Act 2024 provides that challenges relating to the same matter should be heard jointly, and the port will also seek an expedited hearing.

The company expects to receive confirmation of a hearing date within the next month. That timing is now the immediate procedural catalyst, although the announcement gives no estimate of how the legal process could affect construction timing, project costs or the consent itself.

Expansion would add 700 metres of berth and wharf capacity

Stella Passage involves extending the Sulphur Point container berth by 385 metres in two stages and extending the Mount Maunganui wharves by a further 315 metres. The works would use cargo storage land within the port’s existing footprint, alongside associated reclamation behind the new wharves and dredging of the passage.

That existing-footprint design was part of the project description accompanying the fast-track approval, but the current filing offers no update on construction sequencing or capital requirements. The next meaningful marker is therefore not a project milestone but the court’s decision on consolidation, urgency and ultimately the challenges themselves.