It is also advocating for funding increases in line with inflation in future years.
The city council has budgeted for an increase of 2% in the museum’s levy, which would amount to a $94,000 rise, but the museum has characterised its situation as a looming financial crisis.
Submissions supporting the museum’s campaign are among about 380 received by the council about its draft annual plan for 2023-24.
Other themes covered by submitters include concern about trucks travelling through the heart of Mosgiel, loss of built heritage in Dunedin and the vulnerability of city archives.
About 60 people or organisations are set to make verbal presentations to the council next week.
The Dunedin Gymnastic Academy is pitching for $280,000 a year from the council, starting in 2023-24, to fund borrowing of $3million for capital building costs.
Its preferred site for a new academy is at Sidey Park, Caversham.
The city council has signalled a proposed rates increase of about 6.5%.
It said in February this was what would be needed to produce "no obvious decreases to levels of service".
This would be below the 7% rise that was signalled in the 2021-31 long-term plan, but would also produce an unbalanced budget.
Last month, museum director Dr Ian Griffin said the Dunedin facility had become "the poster-child of what is wrong with museum funding in New Zealand".
The museum also receives funding from the Clutha, Central Otago and Waitaki District Councils, but says it self-generates more than 50% of its operating costs.
"The levy we get from the councils has not been keeping pace with inflation," Dr Griffin said last month.
Levy funding was for core operations of the museum and keeping entry to public galleries free of charge.
The Mosgiel-Taieri Community Board’s written submission included a picture of a truck in Gordon Rd, at the intersection with Factory Rd.
"Using this route through Mosgiel means that this truck encounters four sets of traffic lights, five pedestrian crossings, passes 317 residential homes, disturbs 41 retail businesses which shake as it rumbles past, passes five motels, two schools, one elderly care facility, a brand new swimming pool and a funeral home."
It called for a heavy transport bypass of Gordon Rd, Mosgiel’s main street.
The Southern Heritage Trust lamented some housing intensification and the loss of character-contributing homes in the city.
"We don’t want to create a situation where so much is lost no-one wants to live here ...
"Our trust is deeply worried that developers see character in our city as fodder for their developments."
The Otago and Southland branch of Archives and Records Association of New Zealand was dismayed by the apparent shelving of a plan to move archives out of the Civic Centre basement and into the city library’s upper basement.
It remained worried about the possibility of overhead pipes at the existing site breaching in an earthquake.
Federated Farmers asked the council to "prioritise delivering a rates cap for rural landowners, especially farmers".
The federation said it supported the council taking a measured and pragmatic approach in recognising challenging times economically, and trying to keep rates rises in check, but advocated caution in taking on a lot more debt on an ongoing basis.
