Transport manager Denis Mander told the Otago Daily Times the council, along with the Clutha Fisheries Trust and the Upper Clutha Tracks Trust, had been working with the company to improve public access.
Mr Mander said last week the ''most prominent'' issues were access from Kane Rd to the true left bank of the Clutha River, and obtaining access between Butterfield Rd and the Hawea River along the old Newcastle Rd alignment.
Mr Mander said he was working on a draft agreement that included ''a series of land swaps and granting of easements''.
He planned to report to the October meeting of the Wanaka Community Board, and the report would outline what public consultation ''if any'' was required.
''The draft agreement will need community board sign off before the agreement between the parties can be finalised and the legal work on land swaps and easements can start,'' he said.
A 2012 study of public access to the upper Clutha River by Fisheries Trust staff member Aaron Horrell noted established access points had been ''gradually lost'' as land use changed.
''This was a direct result of subdivision, residential development and land use intensification including horticultural development.
''By 2000, secure public access for recreational river users was very limited,'' he said.
Lengthy sections of the river had no vehicle access points, which limited use by anglers as well as other recreational users.
The trust identified ''Pivot Lane'' through Devon Dairy as an access point to the river that needed to be secured.
Mr Horrell said the public road extended 3.1km west from Kane Rd, then turned 90 degrees to the south for an additional 1.6km until it reached Department of Conservation land near the river's edge.
He considered the road would provide public access with ''minimal works''.
Fisheries Trust chairman Dan Rae, of Cromwell, declined to discuss the negotiations this week.
In his annual report in August 2014, Mr Rae said the agreement was ''very near completion'', though it was ''a little different to that which was originally pursued''.
''What is now proposed will open up a magnificent area of the Clutha River and will be of significant public benefit.''
