Mayor Nandor Tanczos says the public forum of a Whakatāne District Council meeting could be a good place to start for people wishing to have a locality name changed from Coastlands to its correct name.

His suggestion was in response to last week’s story about Piripai and Pāroa residents objecting to having their locality named after a nearby subdivision, both on a Toitū te Whenua – Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) database used by the council, NZ Post and the Electoral Roll.

It has also become common in colloquial speech.

“It does seem rather bizarre that somehow the whole area has been renamed Coastlands based on the fact that there is a residential development of that name in the area,” Mr Tanczos said.

“There seems like there is a lot of confusion about how that came to be.

“I would say that if people felt strongly about wanting the council to address the matter they could come to one of our public forums.

“I can’t dictate what the council would determine, but I would be interested in seeing how we could help with the process of having the record corrected.”

Whakatāne District Council staff said making a request to LINZ to change a locality name within district boundaries would require direction from elected members.

People and partnerships general manager Emlyn Hatch said the council understood how important place names were to people’s identity and connection to the whenua.

“There is no official, legally defined localities dataset in New Zealand, which means different organisations can use different locality names for the same area.

“The council uses the LINZ NZ Suburbs and Localities dataset for all addressing purposes, including rates bills, as it is the most authoritative option available nationally. LINZ records the locality for this area as Coastlands, which is the name that appears on our correspondence. This is consistent with how most New Zealand councils approach addressing.”

He said the council had not received any formal complaints about the issue.

Where concerns about addressing were raised, people were referred to appropriate agencies like NZ Post.

“Changing how areas are recorded in official systems isn’t something the council can do on its own. It involves a formal process with national agencies and would require a report to elected members for direction. These processes can be complex and take time.”

The developers of Coastlands Beachside Estate residential subdivision agree that the name, “Coastlands” should not be used to describe the greater area of Piripai, Pāroa and Poroporo.

Sharlene Lysaght, the daughter of the original developers, Ian and Adrianne Lysaght, is the administrator of Lysaght Developments.

“The use of Coastlands to describe Pāroa and Poroporo does not make any sense to us, and we agree it is not right. We also agree the correct name for the coastal area is Piripai, a name we ourselves have always used,” Lysaght said.

“Coastlands should only refer to our subdivision, which is the land to the west of Ohuirehe Road and accessed via the western end of Bunyan Road.

“Coastlands is a name my parents chose for their subdivision back in the late 1970s. Like the name Piripai, the name was chosen for its biblical significance, as it is used in the Bible a number of times to describe coastal land.

“Many years ago, we tried to prevent its use for other areas by talking with local real estate agents.

“We even installed a ‘Coastlands’ sign, adjacent to the Keepa Road-Bunyan Road roundabout, with an arrow to show where Coastlands was actually located – that sign is still in place. However, at some point, the local authorities began using our subdivision name for the whole area. We were not consulted about this, nor did we agree with it.”