A Gibbston resident has described a riverside freedom-camping site near his home as being like a "Syrian refugee camp''.
Up to 200 people a night are cramming into a car park next to the Rum Curries camping area, which has one long-drop toilet, at the end of Rafters Rd, next to the Kawarau River.
The Department of Conservation manages the site and staff admit it is overcrowded and campers are defecating outside and leaving rubbish.
Staff intend to raise the issue with police. Building contractor Brandon O'Callaghan has lived across the highway from Rafters Rd for 11 years.
He said during the past six months it had been "like living in a camping ground'', with the number of people staying at the car park.
Tourists recently knocked on his door asking to camp in his backyard because the site was full and he had heard campers were defecating in the river because the toilet was overflowing.
"It is ridiculous,'' Mr O'Callaghan said.
"It used to be one or two kayakers; that would be it. But in the last couple of months it's gone up tenfold.
"It's not just summer. It wasn't just over Christmas. It's every night.
"And now it's out of control ... In the last few months it's just gone ballistic. How many more are going to come?''
Dave Henderson and wife Kristina Buxton live over the fence from the site.
"Parts of that property can not now be walked on because they are so covered in human shit,'' Mr Henderson said.
"There are no rubbish bins down there so litter blows all over our property.''
Mr Henderson has some empathy for the campers, "having been 21 once''.
"Communities like Queenstown, which will just become more popular, at all levels of tourism, need to be creative and realistic about solving this issue.''
Landowners in many parts of the country have raised concerns about noise, sanitation and waste in relation to freedom camping.
Earlier this week, the Otago Daily Times reported up to 30 people, primarily sleeping in cars, had taken over privately-owned land in Park St, Queenstown.
Mr O'Callaghan said that was nothing compared with the Gibbston site, with its ‘‘endless'' stream of traffic, bass-driven music cranking, and rubbish and toilet paper strewn everywhere.
"It's like a camping ground on New Year's Eve every night and on a Saturday night it just goes nuts.''
Doc Wakatipu operations manager Geoff Owen admitted the site was overcrowded and campers were defecating on the site and leaving rubbish.
Mr Owen met Queenstown Lakes District Council staff earlier this week to discuss how to tackle the problem - and intends raising the issue with police.
"People see it as a place to camp free and it was never designed to do that,'' Mr Owen said.
"It was never designed to take the number of vehicles that have been experienced down there.
"It does pose an issue for my staff because we're having to clean up after them and, to me, that's not satisfactory.''
The council is responsible for the road and Doc manages areas either side - the Rum Curries historic reserve and a "marginal strip'' of land between the river and the road.
Mr Owen said the problems were apparent last summer but had been worse this summer.
He is investigating whether overnight campers can be banned from the reserve by a change of designation and he hopes a solution can be found by next summer.
Council regulatory manager Lee Webster said the council's enforcement team had only recently become aware of the scale of camping at Rafters Rd and was working with Doc to get a consistent approach for the whole area.
To date, the council had not extended its nightly freedom camping patrols to the area and had not issued any fines there.
As awareness of freedom camping grew across the district, the community's tolerance of non-compliance was less and the council was getting more reports of people sleeping in uncertified campervans and other vehicles, Mr Webster said.
If the council was to meet a community demand for more enforcement, the council would have to allocate more resources to it, which was something people could ask for through the annual plan and budget consultation in April.
In 2011, the Government brought in the Freedom Camping Act ahead of the Rugby World Cup to give local councils the powers to prohibit camping and issue $200 instant fines.
The country is now dealing with greater numbers of tourists.
The latest Statistics New Zealand tally of international visitor arrivals, for the year to January, was almost 3.2 million, up 10.7% on the previous 12-month period.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment estimated 60,000 international visitors a year go freedom camping in New Zealand.
