Dunedin faces some fundamental issues as it searches for ways to deal with "freedom camping"; tourists who visit the city in campervans and park on public land.
"As long as there are campervans, there will be people who won't go to camping sites," Dunedin City Council reserves policy and planning officer Dolina Lee told the freedom camping hearings committee yesterday.
"While there are people, there will be bad behaviour."
Ms Lee was responding, in part, to criticism of staff efforts at enforcement of the current bylaw from former council reserves officer Paul Pope during submissions. Mr Pope described the new bylaw as "confusing", and said the response to the issue was based on insufficient evidence.
The debate came as a council hearings committee, of Crs Kate Wilson and Jinty MacTavish, and Hoani Langsbury, of the Otago Peninsula Community Board, heard some of the 28 submissions on the issue.
The council has suggested rules allowing campervans on public land for two nights, as it attempts to deal with people freedom camping in ecologically sensitive areas, and disposing of human waste inappropriately.
To add to the issues to be considered, the Government announced on Sunday its new Freedom Camping Bill, to be introduced to Parliament this month, that will enable councils to determine where camping is allowed, where it is restricted to campervans with self-contained facilities, and where it is prohibited.
The Government's new law would provide for a $200 instant fine that could be imposed on the camper or the vehicle, and new regulations would require campervan hire companies to record and disclose details so fines could be enforced. Fines up to $10,000 could be imposed by courts on a successful prosecution for illegally discharging a campervan's sewage.
Among the submissions heard yesterday, Wallace St resident Emma Lynch said her street had become a camping "hot spot" in the last couple of years for both self-contained and non-self contained vehicles.
There was a nearby path into the bush, and "I dread to think what's in that part of the Town Belt".
"If I wanted to live by a camping site, I'd live somewhere else."
Morry Nielsen-Vold, of the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, said his organisation had 22,600 member families, and 42,000 individuals.
He said there were 60 hire companies, 3500 vans available, and the industry provided $500 million a year to the New Zealand economy.
The idea councils were not in the business of providing facilities for freedom campers was a "head-in-the-sand attitude".
Mr Pope, a Portobello resident and former council reserves officer, said the campervan "census" held earlier this year was not enough on which to base a bylaw, and there was a danger the council was making a change based on "pretty loose" evidence.
"You need to have better information than you have at the moment," Mr Pope said.
He also raised concerns about who would "camp" at the reserves, which were also used by children, and said some might display "predatory and inappropriate behaviour".
He said he had remonstrated with a freedom camper emptying the contents of his chemical toilet into the harbour, and when he complained to the police, was told there was nothing that could be done.
He called on the council to delay the process, set areas aside for freedom camping during the Rugby World Cup, and then come back to the issue after the event.
Ms Lee said the council was considering freedom camping sites for the Rugby World Cup, and their management. At the end of the hearing, she said the council was doing the work because of government initiatives to deal with the problem.
The bylaw was drafted on a model put together by the Government, and the council was required to deal with the matter by the end of May.
But she said the Rugby World Cup needed to be put to one side, and the freedom camping policy considered on a long-term basis.
Cr Wilson moved the meeting to being non-public for deliberations, and said a decision would be made by May 31.
