The Dunedin City Council yesterday voted against a proposed bylaw banning campers in vehicles without toilets.
That makes the city one of the only centres in the South Island not to have banned the practice.
A close vote - eight to six - came following months of work to put together a response to the flood of freedom campers filling sites at Warrington and Ocean View, and a sometimes angry backlash against them.
In August, a council bylaw subcommittee voted for the option that would mean visitors in those vehicles would have to use campgrounds, backpackers or similar accommodation when staying overnight within the city boundary.
That committee heard 11,593 vehicles stayed overnight at the council's freedom camping site in Warrington between October 1 last year and April 30.
But at a full council meeting yesterday, councillors argued the bylaw, similar to ones used by other councils across the South Island, would scatter campers far and wide to areas where they could not be controlled.
Council parks and recreation operations manager Jendi Paterson told the meeting discussions nationally had moved away from providing facilities for such vehicles, instead directing them to camping grounds or other accommodation providers.
During debate, Cr Andrew Whiley said 74% of people who made submissions on the issue wanted the bylaw.
``What I would like everybody to do is think about the community, think about what the community has asked us to do.''
But Cr Aaron Hawkins said he would ``struggle to support this''.
He was concerned about how the bylaw would be enforced, and questioned whether a ``scattered population'' of campers would be easier to manage than a population in areas where they were expected to be.
Cr Lee Vandervis agreed.
He said what the community wanted was ``not available''.
``It's beyond optimistic.''
He said being one of the only areas to welcome freedom campers, with the ``advantage of being more friendly'', meant the city would benefit from more tourists.
But Cr Christine Garey, who supported the bylaw, said she had fronted meetings of angry residents when she was on the Otago Peninsula Community Board.
``It's the most polarising thing,''she said.
``I'd like to think we could share our piece of paradise with the world, but unfortunately it sadly isn't so.''
Cr Damian Newell opposed the bylaw, which he described as a ``very, very blunt tool''.
Freedom campers, instead of staying in one place, would be ``all over our province, hiding from enforcement''.
Mayor Dave Cull said none of the options suggested would work perfectly, but councillors had to decide between ``an unsustainable situation at the moment, and an imperfect situation that we're proposing.
The latter was consistent with the rest of New Zealand.
``If the rest of the South Island has one rule and we have another, and they all come here, I think we'll be back in this chamber in a year, desperate to find a way out of a situation we've got ourselves into by not listening to our community.''
Crs Garey, Mike Lord, Chris Staynes, Conrad Stedman, Whiley and Mayor Cull voted for the bylaw, while Crs David Benson-Pope, Rachel Elder, Hawkins, Marie Laufiso, Newell, Jim O'Malley, Vandervis and Kate Wilson voted against.
