The Dunedin City Council, the New Zealand Transport Agency and landowner Doug Hall yesterday agreed during a High Court hearing to retain the interim arrangement in place at the intersection until a formal redesignation process was complete.
State Highway 88 in the Forsyth Barr Stadium area was realigned before the Rugby World Cup, but during the land designation process the council failed to notify Mr Hall as an affected landowner.
Mr Hall says the realignment has impacted on his ability to access his nearby properties.
The original designation was subsequently quashed and an interim traffic management arrangement agreed and put in place in May, but no agreement has been reached on a final solution for the area, despite extensive discussions between the three parties.
The Ward St overbridge is also closed as part of the temporary arrangement.
At yesterday's civil hearing in the High Court at Dunedin, much of the morning was spent clarifying exactly who was seeking what from the court.
Council counsel Malcolm Couling said it believed the purpose of the hearing was that Mr Hall - who opposed activation of the traffic lights, because his advice was it would create an unsafe intersection - was seeking a mandatory injunction to keep the interim arrangement in place until a permanent solution could be agreed.
But presiding judge Justice Alan MacKenzie, of Wellington, said Mr Hall had that promise already in a previous court order.
That meant yesterday's hearing must be about the council seeking to alter the status quo by turning on the traffic lights.
However, given the wording of the previous court order, he questioned what legal basis there was for him to order any changes to the interim arrangement.
The hearing was set down for several days, but after lunch the court was adjourned while the parties reached an agreement to maintain the interim arrangement until the redesignation process was complete, or until a further application for an alteration to the temporary arrangement was made to the court.
On receiving the memorandum, Justice MacKenzie thanked counsel for their work on what was "clearly a difficult issue" and one that had "some distance to go yet" before final arrangements were in place.
Council general manager, operations, Tony Avery said after the hearing the council's preference was to have the signals working, for overall roading network efficiency, as it had still had some concerns about traffic flow at the intersection despite the temporary arrangement.
The redesignation process had started, but was in its infancy and, including the required notification and consultation, it would now be up to 12 months, or possibly longer, before it was complete, unless all parties could agree on a permanent traffic management solution.
Given no agreement had been reached in the past 12 months, he doubted this would happen, but was "ever hopeful".
He declined to say how much the dispute had cost the council.
Mr Hall declined to comment ahead of the judge issuing his order on the matter.
Council transportation operations manager Graeme Hamilton last week said the second designation would not result in the realignment being changed, but would allow for any talks over land purchases that followed.
