The Dunedin City Council will block uncontrolled public access to its staff following several "near misses" with angry ratepayers.
Council staff have confirmed a plan to spend $2.5 million redeveloping the Civic Centre ground-floor plaza into an open-plan reception area, and reorganising other offices within the building.
Customer services agency staff working in the new reception area - expected to be completed by April - would handle all public inquiries, with relevant council staff called down as required, and access to other parts of the building through locked doors.
Outlining the changes, council customer services general manager Grant Strang last week insisted the move was not about preventing members of the public from speaking to staff.
Instead, it was about centralising and improving the customer services operation, while also providing a safe working environment for staff, something required by health and safety legislation.
Mr Strang said the changes would address the "real" risks associated with uncontrolled public access to staff.
"There's nothing stopping anyone at the moment coming into the lift, getting off at any floor and not being challenged," Mr Strang said.
"You don't have to put too much together to see how that might be a risk to staff . . . We are quite exposed in that respect and we have had a couple of near-misses."
The move was not a response to more recent hostility directed at the council over issues ranging from city parking changes to the development of the Forsyth Barr Stadium, Mr Strang said.
Public access to Mayor Peter Chin and council chief executive Jim Harland's second-floor offices would continue, but visitors would first have their appointments confirmed by customer services agency staff and be issued with a visitor sticker for security purposes.
Long-serving council watchdog Syd Adie, the past chairman of the Dunedin Ratepayers and Householders Association, criticised the changes as unnecessary.
It was important to be able to speak to staff directly, and quickly, and the changes could provide ways for people to be "fobbed off" by the council, he said.
Council strategy and development general manager Kate Styles said the wider reorganisation of the building was already under way, and the first changes to the plaza would begin in December.
Most of the work would be carried out after Christmas and completed by the end of April.
The council was still obtaining building consents for the work, she said.
Mr Strang said retailers operating in the plaza would not be affected by the changes, but regular visitors "probably wouldn't recognise" the plaza once the work was completed.
