Despite yesterday being a public holiday, a public meeting in the settlement was well attended, Mr Pope said.
The beach and nearby reserve have suffered badly from erosion and neglect, but earlier this year Te Rauone locals secured an agreement for a multimillion-dollar restoration project.
"The meeting went really well," Mr Pope said.
"The overwhelming response was really positive and people are just delighted to see things happening."
Draft plans for the reserve, about 2km from Taiaroa Head, involve building three large rock groynes and redeveloping the reserve with plantings, barbecue facilities, playground extensions and walkways.
Port Otago chief executive Kevin Winders and Dunedin City Council staff addressed the meeting and answered questions.
"The questions were predominantly about the Port Otago side of the development, in terms of how the groynes would be placed, how would they work in terms of collecting sand," Mr Pope said.
"The chief executive [Mr Winders] gave reassurances that Port Otago would be maintaining the groynes, and also looking to continue with renourishment and moving sand on to the site ... sand dunes are quite a technical area, and there were a lot of questions about that."
Locals also wanted to know when work would start, and there was now an expectation work on gaining resource consent would start soon, Mr Pope said.
"I wouldn’t like to say what the timeframe would be but people realise there are issues around that and people understand that.
"But I think we’ll just keep communicating between Port Otago, the DCC and the steering group, and so long as the community remains informed we will be doing our job."
