Dunedin City Council representatives have asked Baldwin St residents, local business owners and tour operators to come up with suggestions on how the long-awaited public toilets scheme should be implemented.
Enterprise Dunedin destination manager Ryan Craig and Dunedin City Council events and community development adviser Paul Coffey attended an executive meeting of the Northeast Valley Community Project at the Valley Baptist Church last night to hear concerns about tourist operations at Baldwin St.
Many of the 25 people at the meeting were residents or business owners, and complained of tourists knocking on their doors and asking to use their toilets, while others just went into their back yards and urinated in the garden.
There were also complaints of large amounts of rubbish being left in their gardens, and road safety issues around tourists standing in the middle of the street when traffic was going by.
Mr Craig told those at the meeting, a temporary toilet would be put in place before Christmas, and wastewater infrastructure was being sorted.
He said at present, council staff were working on the size, style and possible locations of permanent toilets.
Locations could include a site at the bottom of the street or further up the street.
However, he said wider discussions needed to take place with residents, businesses and tour operators about what the facilities would look like and where they should be placed.
Mr Craig said council wanted the community to retain the concept of manaakitanga - hospitality, kindness, generosity and support for visitors - but at the same time, it wanted residents to have a say in how they wanted their community to look and feel.
''That's not something we're going to dictate to you, because essentially, you live here, not me.
''That's a conversation you need to have with us, about what sort of final solution you want for the toilets - how you want them to look, where you want them - and that's a two-way conversation.''
Mr Craig said he was happy to come back to the executive's next meeting and listen to some of the community's ideas, and take them back to council.
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Residents are prepared to do their bit for the valuable tourist trade, and the manaaki and everything, but they are the only street being asked to do so.
A rates rebate for Baldwin Street, then.
Hey DCC, just make a decision. You have been faffing about with this for years. You can manage to design and build bike lanes in South Dunedin in the same place 3 times in about 3 years. But you can't plant a hire toilet in 2 years!
I suppose the difference is one project is the Mayor's pet project - cycle ways - and the other project is what is needed for the community. Not hard to see where the priorities sit.
Maybe the Dunedin bike network can be encouraged to ask for the toilets to service students going between North East Valley and the university. This might become a priority then.