Councillors at the council community development committee meeting earlier this week voted to adopt the draft plan for public consultation, with a hearing committee comprising councillors and a community representative to be confirmed.
However, councillors have agreed to remove controversial plans for a cluster of housing at the end of Broad Bay's Bacon St from the draft plan for the block, which was bought by the council for $2.6 million in 2008.
Instead, that area could be the site of community orchards or ecological restoration, according to a report presented by council community and recreation policy team leader Lisa Wheeler to yesterday's meeting.
The proposed disposal of other sites at Camp Rd and Sandymount Rd would need to be assessed as not significantly altering the values of the property, the report suggested.
On the governance question, an attached report by consultant Forest Environment Ltd said it had prepared the plan as if the area were a reserve managed by the council, although no decision has been made on this.
Given the site's popularity and the " ethos of stewardship for this property" already shown in the community, one of the options was for a management board to work with the council to manage the property.
The structure of such a board would likely consist of community representatives with governance and appropriate technical experience.
Another possibility was vesting the property with an independent charitable trust, removing the council as administering body of the property, but with a council representative on the trust's board.
The charitable trust, whether existing already or created specifically for the property, would both own and manage the property.
The advantage of this was that a trust would more easily secure contestable public funds to assist with the enhancement of the property.
However, this needed to be weighed up against the ability of the council to contribute consistent levels of expenditure to maintain the property.
This could be overcome by a memorandum of understanding between any trust and the council which ensured a commitment to ongoing maintenance funding.
Councillors this week instructed the Harbour Cone steering committee to investigate governance models and report on a preferred option.
Councillors also approved the draft plan for a one-month public consultation period, and established a hearing committee to hear submissions, if required, and make recommendations on the plan.
The hearing committee would comprise Mayor Dave Cull and Crs Kate Wilson and Jinty MacTavish, and former Otago Peninsula Community Board chairwoman Irene Scurr would be invited to represent the community.
It has been hoped that, because of the extensive community input into the preparation of the draft plan, contentious matters have already been covered.
Mr Cull, speaking this week, said the public had been given a considerable opportunity to have their say, and the draft plan that had resulted was "very robust" with "pretty much universal buy-in".
"This is an extremely good, high-quality product, this management plan. I don't think there's any fish-hooks in it."
