The council this week voted to close the street to cars from 10am to 4pm from Friday to Sunday and on public holidays until Easter next year despite a final plea from a long-time opponent of the plan.
Oasis Oamaru owner Greg Waite, who in November circulated a petition among Harbour St business owners opposing restricting vehicles in the street, spoke in the public forum before the meeting asking councillors to leave the decision on the table and to consider instead limiting parking on the street to 10 or 15 minutes, turning Harbour St into a service road.
He has questioned the legality of a road closure and criticised the council's consultation with businesses in the area.
The make-up of the businesses in the street was diverse and his business, unlike other businesses, was ``not cash and carry'' but rather catered for destination shoppers, he said.
``This has been a populist thing - this closure,'' he said.
``This is the jewel in our tourism crown in Oamaru. If we get it wrong, it will be an absolute disaster.''
His business, Oasis, sells antiques, art and interiors.
Waitaki deputy mayor Melanie Tavendale, who chaired the meeting while Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher was overseas, defended the level of consultation the council had undertaken, called for a show of ``leadership'' from councillors and said with the number of times the council had revisited the issue recently the matter had begun to feel like ``Groundhog Day''.
``We're being our own worst enemy here,'' she said.
``We can keep going back to the drawing board ... or we can stand up and make a decision.''
Cr Jim Hopkins said if the council had ``done enough work'' on planning for Harbour St to become a destination in future ``everybody would know what that destination looks like''. The street was once a working Victorian street, but now the direction of the street had seemed to become more ``bourgeois'' - there was no coherent vision for its future.
He lobbied unsuccessfully to scrap the Friday closures.
Cr Hugh Perkins successfully called for a review of the closure's effects on the economic performance of businesses in the area. The principal landlord, the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, relied on the rentals and ``a steady cashflow'' to maintain the buildings, he said..
A council spokeswoman said the closures three days per week would begin as soon as the bollards were installed.
Vehicles would not be allowed to park on Harbour St when it was closed, but ``measures would be put in place to allow access during closures to delivery and pick-up vehicles, emergency vehicles and vehicles for people with disabilities''.
Some nearby parking would change from 60-minute parking spots to 120-minute parks, and a bus park on the west side of Tyne St would be provided ``to allow coaches to park without obscuring buildings''.
