Also, although a landscaping plan for the area will have to be agreed to, it will not delay work planned for the area.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher initially made a bid to get an agreement on landscaping for the area in place "before work commences", but dropped the proposed condition at this week's assets committee meeting before it was tested in a vote.
Last month, the Waitaki District Council put the removal of the trees at the edge of the Oamaru Harbour area on hold after councillors were caught out by staff plans to fell the trees on the road reserve alongside a Waterfront Rd and Tyne St harbour accommodation site sold by the council in July.
The trees to be removed were expected to suffer significant damage in the realignment of a large stormwater main following the closure of Arun St and the development of new accommodation on the site.
Council assets group manager Neil Jorgensen warned that with contractors "ready to go", work could be delayed by the requirement to have an agreed landscape plan in place first.
The condition of agreement before work started would present "another delay" by council decision-making, he said.
Mr Kircher asked about the possibility of replacing the trees with some in "large-scale planters", but council recreation manager Erik van der Spek said the parks department "can't see an option that would be beneficial in the long term".
"We've got the ability to have some trees there and make it quite a feature.
I don't think this is an impossible task," Mr Kircher said.
Council, neighbours, and stakeholders were to be involved in the landscape planning, he said.
Mr Jorgensen said a proposed alternative King George Park realignment of the stormwater main was a non-starter as it missed two sumps at the Arun St level.
Cr Jim Hopkins questioned why the report to the assets committee, tabled on Tuesday, did not make reference to the council's "strong restrictions" on removing trees.
He said it was a "really fundamental reputational matter".
"If we make those rules for everyone else, we make them for ourselves."
