This Act may be cited as the Rotorua City Empowering (Ohinemutu Streets) Act 1974.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any other enactment, the streets and footways (whether formed or unformed), being the land described in the Schedule to this Act, are hereby vested in the body corporate called the Mayor, Councillors, and Citizens of the City of Rotorua in fee simple discharged from all encumbrances, mortgages, charges, claims, estates, or interests of whatsoever kind; and are hereby declared to be streets within the meaning of section 169 of the Municipal Corporations Act 1954. Except as otherwise provided in this Act, the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Act 1954 shall apply to those streets.

The Maori Land Court and the District Land Registrar are hereby empowered and directed to make all necessary amendments to any estates or interests in land, orders, or certificates of title, and to do such other acts for the purpose of giving full effect to the provisions of this Act.

If any portion of the said streets is stopped or closed under the Municipal Corporations Act 1954 or any other Act, then notwithstanding anything to the contrary in that Act or in any other Act, the Corporation shall convey that portion, without payment to it of any consideration, to such person or persons (whether incorporated or not) and in such shares as the Maori Land Court for the district in which the land is situated in its absolute discretion directs; and in any such case the Court shall be empowered to consider any application in that behalf and make such order in respect of the application as it thinks fit.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in Part 25 of the Municipal Corporations Act 1954 or in any other Act, the Rotorua City Council may, with the consent of the Minister of Local Government given after consultation with the Minister of Maori Affairs, approve the subdivision or partition of any land adjacent to the said streets without requiring the frontage of any allotment to be set back and without requiring the imposition of a building-line restriction.

(1) In addition to the powers conferred by section 170(4)(i) and (o) of the Municipal Corporations Act 1954 and notwithstanding anything to the contrary in that Act, the Rotorua City Council may, on receiving an application in that behalf, after consultation with any Maori Committee constituted under section 9 of the Maori Welfare Act 1962 for an area in the immediate locality of the said streets or, if there is no such committee, on its own motion, close any portion of the said streets for such period and subject to such conditions as it thinks fit for the purposes of any tangi or other function of tribal or other Maori significance in the Ohinemutu Village. The Council shall give such public notice of any such closure as is practicable.

(2) The power conferred on the Rotorua City Council by subsection (1) of this section may be exercised by the Mayor or, in his absence, by the Town Clerk and a Councillor, on behalf of the Council.

(3) The Council shall be immune from any claim and not be liable to any person for any loss or damage resulting from any such closure.