It means the council will now approach the current 35 privately owned mooring holders to assume consent liability.
If they refuse, the council will cede its existing 35-year coastal consent for the moorings back to the Otago Regional Council (ORC).
The remaining seven of the moorings held by council will be handed back to the ORC. The decision was unanimous at yesterday’s council meeting.
Acting assets group manager Paul Hope said a move by the ORC to greater compliance was forcing the issue.
It had indicated it would now enforce the conditions of the coastal consent, first granted to Waitaki in 2014.
"Otago Regional Council has made the decision to throw more resources into their coastal responsibilities," Mr Hope said.
That included policing Waitaki to ensure it was meeting the existing consent conditions.
Since 2014, the council had taken the approach of farming out its responsibility to the mooring owners via a licensing agreement.
That had been more or less successful.
"There has been very good compliance by some — particularly those from the North Otago Yacht and Powerboat Club."
However, the ORC had now made it "very clear" all obligations ultimately fell on the district council.
This came with "significant liabilities", Mr Hope said.
Cr Jim Thomson commended staff and moved to immediately accept it.
"I can see the arguments it outlines as totally acceptable."
But Cr Jim Hopkins said it was important to understand "certain risks" before voting.
He wanted to know why all responsibility stayed with the council when it was imposing a licensing agreement on the owners.
Council assets operation manager Joshua Rendell said "any non-compliance" under the current consent would fall on the council.
The current arrangement outlined expectations, but "with little power" of enforcement.
That included the council having to pick up the cost of a boat breaking from its mooring, if that mooring was found to be "ill maintained", Mr Rendell said.
The recommendation applied only to the 42 moorings under the consent, not the berths.
Cr Rebecca Ryan asked if the council had assessed the financial impact on the individual mooring owners if it walked away.
Mr Rendell said only the cost to the council had been quantified.
"I can say the quantity would be larger for council than it would be for individuals," he said.
Thirty-five moorings were already individually owned. If the owners did not agree with council’s suggestion to partially cede consent to them, they would need to apply for their own resource consents from the ORC, he said.
"When it comes to council’s moorings, council would be removed from a number of risk factors as well as cost factors."
The current sublicense agreement with mooring owners was "to make clear their obligations".
At present, two mooring owners are described as "unknown".
This is apparently the result of previous dispute over ownership transfers.
By Brendon McMahon
