Crown property management

What property does the Crown own?

Toitū Te Whenua manages around 2 million hectares of Crown-owned land. We manage this ‘Crown estate’ to deliver the greatest benefits to all New Zealanders, both for today and in future.

The Crown estate includes:

• land held for Treaty settlements
• the beds of lakes and rivers
• forest land
• high country pastoral land in the South Island
• residential and commercial properties, closed schools, courthouses and prisons.

View our Crown land and property data.

Caring for the Crown estate

We do a wide range of work on the Crown estate, such as:

• managing the leases of farmers who are leaseholders of Crown pastoral land
• managing commercial tenancies, leases and other agreements to use Crown lands and properties
• managing applications for permission to use Crown lands and properties
• acquiring, maintaining and disposing of land
• identifying and managing risks (for example, protecting the plants and animals on Crown land)
• providing management advice and services for other Crown agencies
• releasing assets to iwi for Māori and regional development.