Tauranga City Council is looking at selling off land to pay off some of its debt.

At a confidential council meeting this week a list of the council's land holdings was combed over for surplus parcels that can be sold.

In August the council listed 280 properties as being surplus.

There are patches of land all over the city that provide no direct benefit to ratepayers and are to be sold.

The sale process is not being rushed, and once the list is finalised, will through the Ten Year Plan process for consultation before being acted upon.

'It's definitely not a fire sale that's for sure, we don't need to do that,” says Mayor Stuart Crosby.

In August the properties were sorted in A, B, and C categories with B and C being further considered for sale in two tranches.

'We did it in two groups,” says Stuart.

'Properties for sale in the first three years, 2012- 2015, and then another tranche of properties that we may consider for 2015 onwards.”

The 1000 category A properties, which include roads and reserves, are the ones that are going to be kept.

The council is considering the properties in light of the financial ramifications of their sale, their valuation, the level of community interest in any property and its saleability.

'Some pockets are very small, some are land locked, and simply would not be saleable anyway,” says Stuart.

The disposal process also has to be considered.

Some of the properties that could be considered, like Mount Maunganui's May Street Reserve, have reserve status, which will have to be legally revoked before it can be put on the market.

There are other considerations.

The city owns and manages several earthquake prone buildings in the central business district.

Under recent changes to the building code there is a requirement for the council to fix these within the next 10 years if it wants to keep them.

'It's been a good 10 years since we previously have done this,” says Stuart.

'Ten years ago we decided to sell some of the Glasgow leases and land in Greerton, so it was timely that we looked at the property portfolio again to determine what we really required and what we didn't require.

'The bigger properties with major issues will go out for public consultation in the Ten Year Plan.”