The Dunedin City Council is eyeing a review of the way it leases parks and reserves to sports clubs and other groups, despite existing arrangements proving to be a revenue-generator for the council.
Figures released to the Otago Daily Times showed the council expected to earn $377,631.88 from 233 leases and licences to sports clubs and other outside parties in the 2011-12 year.
The agreements granted clubs and other groups the right to occupy parks and reserves, and in some cases develop their own facilities, with leases lasting 14 years and licences five years.
The council was responsible for 4100ha of parks and reserves, including 108 playgrounds and 44 sports grounds, but leased about 294ha of that land to outside groups, the figures showed.
The figures were released to the ODT after a request under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act 1987.
The request followed the decision by Dunedin city councillors last year to agree in principle to grant a lease to the Waikouaiti Golf Club, allowing it to expand on to the Waikouaiti recreation reserve.
That deal was subject to final approval by councillors this year, once details had been settled.
However, council acting community and recreation policy team leader Dolina Lee, said the council's fees and charges policy - which set the cost of lease and licence agreements - was likely be reviewed this year.
The policy had not been updated since 1999, and was "just due for an update", she said.
She could not yet say exactly what the review would involve, or whether fees would increase as a result, but the aim was to "look at it and make sure it is applicable to current practice".
However, the council's aim was not to generate a profit from the lease of parks and reserve land, she said.
Instead, the revenue generated would be returned to the department, helping offset costs, she said.
The council had acquired reserve land from a variety of sources over the years, including the Crown, borough councils (as a result of amalgamation), as part of subdivisions and from endowments.
Many existing leases - such as to rugby clubs - were historic "occupation agreements", allowing use of the land and clubs to build their own facilities, such as clubrooms, on the land, she said.
Most were signed with sports clubs, and were subject to review before renewal by councillors - rather than council staff - every 14 years, she said.
New leases were considered if the council was approached, but proposals needed to fit the classification of the particular reserve - most of Dunedin's were recreation, scenic or local purpose reserves - and be of wider public benefit, she said.
"There would be no reserve that was leased simply to make money. There would have to be some public benefit to it.
"We provide facilities for the community to recreate and that's what our job is."
Licences, which were less common, were granted for five-year terms, typically for grazing or gardening purposes on land not needed for recreation but which the council was unwilling to sell, she said.
There were many reasons the council might choose to lease a reserve to an outside group, but generating revenue was not one of them, she said.
"When we're leasing to sports clubs, it's definitely about providing facilities for recreation for the community. We don't look at making money out of that.
"Mostly it's because the groups want to have their own facilities, and if we believe the facilities will benefit the public and the recreational users of the reserve then we would be interested in granting them a lease."
Most pieces of land leased were portions of larger parks or reserves, she said.
"There are very few entire parks that we would lease or licence to anybody. Usually it's a section of a park, for example the footprint of a clubrooms on a rugby field - it would only be the footprint of the building that is leased, nothing else.
"They're actually very small areas."