ORC or not ORC? That is the question.
Whether it is better to suffer outrageous ORC rates increases, wasteful regulatory bureaucracy and lazy leaseholds — or simply end them — is too big a challenge for the government whose answer is to amalgamate, legislate less costly compliance and add mayoral oversight.
Otago Regional Council chairwoman Hilary Calvert’s suggestion [ODT 28.11.25] that port assets could be "stolen away" from the ORC to pay off another councils’ debt are weasel words that deny logic, justice and history.
Port and harbourside land assets are not going "away" anywhere as they had been reclaimed and developed by Dunedin’s ancestors for over a century before ownership was wrongly gifted to the ORC in 1989.
It is the ORC that has been stealing the returns from Dunedin’s port and harbourside land from Dunedin for the past 35 years to fund its burgeoning bureaucracy.
The lazy leasehold by the ORC and property arm Chalmers Properties (which is 100%-owned by Port Otago — itself fully owned by the ORC) of 400 harbourside properties is one of the reasons that Dunedin has an undeveloped harbourside with rotting wharves.
The ORC chairwoman’s statement that "the council’s new building in Maclaggan St was nearing completion and with the council set to disappear in two years, there was no time to waste over the future of the new offices", also makes no sense.
Surely as an experienced businesswoman who accepts the ORC is set to disappear in two years, it would be much more efficient and less disruptive for the ORC to remain in its existing offices and complete its palatial headquarters as new rentable commercial office space.
This would give ratepayers an immediate rental return on the enormous Maclaggan St cost and save the costs of transferring all the staff, office equipment and specific ORC communications installations to new temporary headquarters.
"Land grab" characterisations from both Dunedin Mayor Sophie Barker and city council chief executive Sandy Graham are also completely backwards, as our port and harbourside land was grabbed from us in 1989 and getting Dunedin land back is delayed justice, not a grab.
Because of ORC/Chalmers Properties’ continued leasehold ownership, the ORC has also prevented development of Dunedin’s harbourside while creaming $30 million annually just from harbourside land rents.
My successful city council motion many years ago to get the ORC/Chalmers Properties to freehold at least 50% of its harbourside leases as a condition of the council contributing $9m to harbourside wharf reconstruction was unanimously voted for, but later bizarrely rescinded just prior to the end of the triennium.
Chalmers Properties has not developed our best South Island natural harbour to be the leading port for the South, instead losing ground to Timaru and earthquake-vulnerable Lyttelton with its sole tunnel freight access.
Dunedin’s port is central to most of the South Island’s export volumes of timber and dairy production and should have been developed with inland ports and better rail connections.
This could have made Port Chalmers the main South Island port for the new, much larger container ships now being built which will want to make only one stop for the South Island.
ORC port inefficiency in a constrained port area has been worsened by failing to organise inland ports, which have been talked about for 20 years.
Inland ports provide space to pre-assemble ship-loads for mostly rail delivery and quicker cheaper ship turnaround, with the added benefit of reducing State Highway88 truck movements to port and the need to stockpile goods in the restricted spaces available in Port Chalmers.
The ORC port property arm also pays extraordinary management salaries, confirmed in last year’s annual report with 14 managers being paid over $250,000 annually and up to a top salary of over $840,000.
My past suggestions of further port and harbourside reclamations that have been so valuable in the past have been barred by iwi and environmentalist obstruction, making inland ports even more of an economic necessity.
Progressive ports like Napier have long developed three inland ports efficiently facilitating New Zealand’s second largest port export volume after Tauranga.
Green Party regional councillor Alan Somerville has argued against ORC demise (Opinion ODT 3.12.25), where he makes a case for keeping a modified ORC regulatory bureaucracy, citing big catchment regulatory needs across boundaries like the Clutha River and added environmental regulations, neither of which Dunedin needs.
I do agree with Cr Somerville that "whatever is settled on for local government organisation, it should be enduring" and that "Port Otago must remain in public ownership".
With sweeping changes also being made to the Resource Management Act and with the Draft Planning Bill, many of the regional councils’ stumbling block regulatory hurdles will hopefully reduce to free up businesses, reduce building costs and the excessive costs of local government generally.
Dunedin needs to be free of the ORC and to get back our port and harbourside land which must be changed to freehold to allow the development necessary for Dunedin to thrive.
Indebted DCC or not DCC? That is the next question.
— Lee Vandervis is a Dunedin city councillor.
