Shifting Waitaki District Council meetings to the Oamaru Opera House last year hampered the council's effectiveness, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher says.
His comments came in response to a report tabled yesterday in which council assets group manager Neil Jorgensen says cramped quarters at the council's Thames St headquarters hurt staff productivity.
Mr Jorgensen recommended moving council meetings back into the Opera House temporarily - as it had last year after flooding damage - to free up space on the building's third floor for some of the council's 122 staff who work in the headquarters building.
''I think it did us harm,'' Mr Kircher said.
Mr Kircher and other councillors sent Mr Jorgensen back to the drawing board to develop options for the ''medium term'' for staff who did not have space in the Thames St headquarters.
While Mr Kircher said he ''absolutely'' agreed with the need to deal with the situation, the council headquarters building had dedicated council chambers. At the Opera House after council meetings, the space was needed and councillors were ''turfed out'' and did not have a chance to debrief.
''We need to have robust debate, but we need to have time afterward,'' Mr Kircher said.
Mr Jorgensen's report says when vacancies at the council are filled, there will be 122 staff in the building and 17 staff members will need to be moved out of existing office space to meet workplace standards and guidelines for office space developed by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Building, regulatory, planning, information services and environmental services staff occupy an average of 7.6sq m in the council headquarters; there should be 12sq m to 16sq m per person in a workplace.
His report says moving 17 staff into the council chambers would allow for 14sq m per person.
Rather than spending $30,000 a year on a commercial lease to house staff, the council would spend only $15,000 a year, in a building it owns, for council meetings if it moved them to the Opera House, the report says.
A council spokeswoman said in May last year 101 people worked in the council headquarters building. In January 2016, 98 people worked there.
At yesterday's meeting, council projects and assets officer Grant Rhodes said the council headquarters' third floor council chambers ''still might not be large enough'' to accommodate 17 staff - only 11 or 12 could comfortably use the space.
Only Crs Hugh Perkins and Jan Wheeler voted against the decision to investigate further.
Cr Perkins said the Opera House was ''not intensively used'' and was ''hugely expensive''. Being used by the council for meetings would meet the Opera House's criteria because council meetings were ''intrinsically community use''.
