At Facebook:
### ODT Online Tue, 30 May 2017
Freedom camping overflows
By David Loughrey
Three new freedom-camping sites are proposed for Dunedin, as the two already provided by the Dunedin City Council have reached capacity. Sites at Rotary Park in Highcliff, a reserve at Puddle Alley near Invermay on the Taieri, and outside the Brighton Surf Lifesaving Club has been put forward as proposed in a report to a council meeting today. The idea has already run into opposition from the Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board, which says the council should not spend money on non-self-contained freedom camping. The explosion of freedom-camping tourism in New Zealand has caused tension as locals deal with overrun campsites, litter and human waste. Sites at Ocean View, and in particular Warrington, have sparked complaints from some residents, while others have been supportive of the visitors. The report said there was an increase of 37% in vehicles using the Warrington site during February and March this year, compared with the year before. There were 157 vehicles there at Waitangi weekend.
Read more
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There was a full meeting of the Dunedin City Council held today, preceded by a Public Forum.
[follow business at the DCC video when published at YouTube]
View the Agenda at: https://infocouncil.dunedin.govt.nz/RedirectToDoc.aspx?URL=Open/2017/05/CNL_20170530_AGN_539_AT_WEB.htm
Items to note:
2.3 Public Forum – Freedom Camping
Rhys Owen wishes to address the meeting concerning freedom camping.
2.4 Public Forum – Freedom Camping
Geraldine Tait, Waikouaiti Coast Community Board wishes to address the meeting concerning Freedom Camping.
Reports:
13. Reserves and Beaches Bylaw 2017
Recommendation Minute
Bylaw Hearings Recommendations
Implementation Plan
Beach Access Points for Horses and Boats
Ecologically Sensitve Beach and Reserve Areas
Reserves and Beaches Bylaw 2017
14. Review of Camping Control Bylaw 2015
Recommendation Minute
Survey Results
Warrington Map
Sites Identified by Community Board and Staff
Potential New Sites
Draft Camping Control Bylaw amendments
Statement of Proposal
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At 14. above, I have linked to the freedom camping survey results requested MONTHS AGO via LGOIMA, from the scrubbers who guarded them from our ‘prying eyes’ – the results are pretty much illegible to the naked eye (nearly the smallest font size possible) but use your onscreen magnifier. Good grief pull your socks up, people: “Communicate clearly!”
At Channel 39 tonight, news presenter Craig Storey said issues with the DCC’s proposed three new freedom-camping sites reached boiling point at the Council meeting.
See tomorrow’s Otago Daily Times for more.
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ODTtv June 7 2016
Someone in the video isn’t coping with the notion of freedom camping, and this was before things got really out of control at Warrington Domain over summer 2016/17 when the irresponsible DCC decided it would not enforce its camping control bylaw 23.
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[btw….how delightful that the Green Party’s list has FEW Southern candidates – think on that DCC followers lol]
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Related Posts and Comments:
● 13.5.17 Condition of Warrington Domain screwed by DCC lack of enforcement #CampingControlBylaw23
● 9.4.17 DCC obfuscates : Open slather for freedom campers at Warrington
● 16.3.17 WE have the information, unreasonable delay providing it #LGOIMA
● 15.2.17 Warrington : DCC dictates loss of community’s grassed recreation reserve to freeloaders
8.2.17 Hands Off Enjoyment of OUR Beaches #DCC
● 6.2.17 Uncontrolled freedom camping at Warrington Domain this weekend —DCC ‘hell model’ [no enforcement]
● 1.2.17 “Fake news” from DCC boffins & Community Board re freedom camping at Warrington Domain #TheBlight
10.2.16 Dunedin freedom camping #DCC #enforcement
16.12.14 DCC: Freedom Camping issues
7.12.09 Coastal protection zones
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
This post is offered in the public interest.
What if? Dunedin... 
FIGHT THEM ON THE BEACHES
*who* has jurisdiction above the high tide mark only ??? !!!!
The New Zealand public owns the beaches.
RULE IS:
If I want to ride my bike on the beach at low tide, I will.
If I want to *gently* drive my SUV on the beach, I will.
If I take up beach racing, stand aside fricking dickhead enforcers.
Just another case of pale-faced Reds/Greens under Bureaucracy’s bed.
I’ve always said Guy Fawkes (care of the Tardis) has a contemporary job to do at the Octagon, he should turn up SOON with the appropriate gear.
Thank-you Cr Lee Vandervis for sensibly representing constituents by standing well apart from the cretinous co-joined at the hip Yes People.
“Cr Lee Vandervis …. repeatedly questioned how many complaints had been received about problems caused by horses on the city’s beaches.”
“Councillors voted to adopt the new bylaw. Only Cr Vandervis voted against.”
People should IGNORE this bylaw forever – we have No Date for when it comes into force. Before “then” [???] there will be TROUBLE, count on it. Take no prisoners Dunedin Public. “They” fear a backlash —so let’s not disappoint them.
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At Facebook:
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Wed, 31 May 2017
ODT: Beach, reserve rules signed off
By Chris Morris
Vehicles will be banned from beaches, but horse owners have won a reprieve, after the Dunedin City Council signed off new rules. Councillors at yesterday’s full council meeting voted to approve the new Reserves and Beaches Bylaw 2017, after considering 433 submissions earlier this year. The bylaw would prohibit all motorised vehicles on the city’s beaches and reserves, with exceptions for emergency services, surf life-savers, fishermen and wind-powered buggies. […] The modified rules included a list of beaches at which horses were permitted, as well as limiting access to designated areas at each beach. Cont/
Regarding Cr Vandervis’s persistent (relentless) questions in response to staff allegations that there were problems with horses on beaches, in my opinion this is a ‘must watch’ when the video comes out. After a number of vague answers, the only specific problem identified was ‘horse droppings’. Then the matter came up of the need to identify and provide suitable access to the beach for horses. And finally it seemed to become clarified that staff, rather than being worried BY horses, were worried FOR horses who might be spooked by dogs and vehicles on the beach. Quite funny to watch. I got the impression that a view might have been formed by some involved that horses were bad on beaches in principle. But when it came to the details of why exactly, staff did not seem to come up with much at all in response to extremely close questioning from Cr Vandervis. (Questioning courteously and respectfully done, I might add.)
The ORC has dominion of the beaches below the high tide mark; the regional council is noted in media reports to have little issue with horses on beaches. When that fact was publicised months ago I thought quill users (city council policy makers) might have emptied their ink pots. Based on observations of the general public across a number of matters, and as reported by MSM, in my opinion, the department concerned requires stronger and more direct management by the city council’s executive leadership team. So to protect ratepayer and resident interests, and assets. That is a fair reckoning ‘by self’ in visits around town – I would be most surprised to be challenged legally as website owner after making this particular statement. The council is required to be accountable and as Diane intimates, “critique” (by affected parties and the general public) is an activity that makes for democracy, and vice versa. The fairness principle is sometimes made to eat endless knots of red tape spaghetti. Digestion is fraught.
Related to freedom camping obliquely, but not… during Ed Sheeran concert season ?!?
This is about greedy self-important house and property owners rooking the system – they advertise their ‘space(s) to let’ online, earn LARGE SUMS, and do not declare their BUSINESS to the DCC for Rates adjustment, nor do substantial numbers of them declare their income to IRD.
Queenstown Lakes District Council has got very good at detection online…. this after a reasonably generous amnesty period. Now it’s enforcement time: note to All Sharks. Thousands of them. QLDC shares info with IRD.
Go for it Otago Motel Association at Dunedin! Great work.
I wonder if DCC has any chance of waking up to emulate QLDC, what with DCC’s head suffocated in the sand above high tide.
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At Facebook:
Wed, 31 May 2017
ODT: Moteliers ask for level playing field
By Chris Morris
The Otago Motel Association is lobbying the Dunedin City Council to crack down on the ”booming” alternative accommodation available in the city. Association president Sue Rhodes made the call at yesterday’s Dunedin City Council public forum, saying the growing number of “unregulated” accommodation options in the city needed to be addressed. She had counted nearly 700 short-stay options available in Dunedin alone being promoted by Airbnb and other websites. Her concern was that some were “flying under the radar” by operating as commercial entities while paying residential rates and avoiding other costs and regulations the association’s moteliers had to comply with. She wanted a “level playing field” for all, which meant those flouting the rules should be identified and forced to pay their dues or face heavy penalties, she said. Other councils were already beginning to address the issue and the DCC should follow suit, she said. Cont/
“I quote: “the bylaw’s focus was not on restrictions, but on “providing users with knowledge of what’s permitted”” —That’s compete and utter bull****”
T.H. White — ‘Everything not forbidden is compulsory’
Getting there. Step by step by (mis)step.
Thank you Hype!
A BIT LATE DCC: [laughable]
LOVE IT: Former city councillor Prendergast is always good for a line guaranteed to stir up the delicate and snivelling PCers:
He’s right!
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Wed, 31 May 2017
ODT: Freedom camping site talks on hold
By Margot Taylor
A proposal to form three new freedom camping sites in Dunedin was met with opposition before a report was even considered at a Dunedin City Council meeting yesterday. It was decided discussion on the report, due yesterday, would be delayed pending information from a national freedom camping forum on Monday which councillors had not had time to consider. The proposal to create new freedom camping sites at Rotary Park in Highcliff, a reserve at Puddle Alley on the Taieri, and outside the Brighton Surf Lifesaving Club, because of overcrowding at existing sites, drew impassioned comments from the public. Warrington resident Rhys Owen said proposed changes to the freedom camping bylaw failed to address the problem of overflow of campers from designated areas. Cont/
-Additional reporting David Loughrey
Hmm. Cr O’Malley wants to set up another local body ‘quango’….
This “Freedom Campers” is a relatively new term, that has caused much angst in areas dominated by them. What is so strange by simply making it compulsory for these folk to stay in the registered overnight places, just like orthodox folk do. For instance Tahuna Camp, Woodhaugh Camp and any other registered place. Pay a small charge for use of facilities such as toilets, ablution blocks and kitchens. End of story. Serious prosecution of offenders and a concentrated campaign to end the practice. Let them sleep in or under their vehicles if desired, just as long as its in designated places. What’s so hard about that? If there is insufficient room for them all, then surely it would be possible to develop additional areas. If it is the cost, then these people are cadgers and users of citizens’ facilities ….or not…. that is bad news. Can’t be hard to fix if enough common sense was applied. Common sense often is the missing ingredient of course.
Bureaucratic confusion isn’t the half of it.
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Thu, 1 Jun 2017
ODT: Confusion over horse treks
By Chris Morris
New rules to protect Dunedin’s beaches have been dismissed by the city’s only full-time horse trek operator as “confused”. Oliver Goldsmith, who runs Hare Hill Horse Treks, has for years offered rides along Aramoana’s beaches. But, after the Dunedin City Council signed off new rules for beaches and reserves this week, he faces a series of new hurdles to carry on. He would have to obtain one permit from the DCC, and another from the Department of Conservation, while a third party – the Otago Regional Council – looked the other way. Cont/