Waitaki District Council's freedom camping subcommittee chairwoman Cr Melanie Tavendale said the possible bylaw, a first for the district, would be debated at the council's June 22 meeting and if approved would be open to public consultation for a month from June 24.
At the council's June 8 extraordinary council meeting, however, while councillors approve, or vote against, projects for the council's 2016-17 annual plan, councillors would be asked to approve $56,000 for signs, information leaflets, and policing for a possible freedom camping bylaw.
The subcommittee Cr Tavendale chairs was formed in March with "tight timeframes'' to investigate a bylaw before the camping season begins again at Labour Weekend in October.
"The community was under a lot of pressure last season and we're looking at ways we can address that,'' Cr Tavendale said.
She said the proposal to go to councillors later this month would probably be seen as "raising the bar a fair bit''.
"It's probably more constricting than we first expected to go, but we have found from watching what other councils have done that if you did identify spots where as a council you are to allow all types of freedom camping, those areas got overrun and there was huge issues with the numbers turning up there.
"There are still other options, but territorial authorities across New Zealand, there's quite a few of them that are starting to go down this track, I think that by putting pressure on across the country, we're going to actually force the industries to lift their standards.''
Council customer services group manager Richard Mabon said under the Freedom Camping Act 2011, the council could "set district-wide expectations around freedom camping'' but could not place a total ban on all forms of freedom camping.
The council last investigated a freedom camping bylaw in 2011, but it did not take any action at that time.
Cr Tavendale said a separate discussion would be required for one of the district's hardest hit area, Campbells Bay, where the land used by freedom campers was a mix of council-owned land and land owned by the Kakanui Ratepayers and Improvement Society.
