The Dunedin City Council and the Department of Conservation have plans to remove on-street parking for the area and create a parking lot at the northern corner of 30 Tunnel Beach Rd, which is owned by Doc, over which the existing track to the beach crosses.
Council tender documents for the project, obtained by the Otago Daily Times, say the organisations have identified significant traffic congestion and health and safety issues, including "antisocial behaviour", along Tunnel Beach Rd, as a result of the limited parking available at present.
Visitor numbers to Tunnel Beach grew from around 38,000 visits a year in 2014, to about 110,000 in 2019.
However, parking at the end of Tunnel Beach Rd contained only 18 formed spaces, the documents said.
The planned parking lot was expected to provide enough parking to meet the demand for the area for the next 20 years.
There would be 64 car parks, a drop-off point for tour buses, a parking bay for motorcycles and bicycles, toilets and other associated amenities.
Tenders closed later this month and the contract was due to be awarded around the start of October, the documents said.
The car park was the subject of a consent hearing last year in which an immediate neighbour expressed concern increased visitor numbers could create noise, pose a threat to horses on the property and have a negative effect on the property’s rural character and amenity.
However, an agreement was reached after plans for a 45m-long, 1.5m-high fence and other changes were included as part of a revised set of consent conditions.
The tender documents said the excavated tunnel at the bottom of the track was believed to be built in the 1870s at the request of Dunedin’s first representative in Parliament, John Cargill, who had it built for his daughters as a gift.
