Yesterday, the council's community services committee considered 158 submissions on the Waitaki lakes camping areas management plan, with almost 59% opposed to the leasing proposal and 23% in favour.
The draft plan put forward several proposals for the camping areas, including leasing them for 21 years to private providers.
The camping areas include Parsons Rock, Boat Harbour, Loch Laird and the Wildlife Reserve as one group, Ohau C and Falstone as the second and Sailors Cutting on its own.
After considering submissions, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said there would be significant changes, ''certainly to the detail, if not the overall direction''.
Yesterday, seven people appeared before the committee to add comments to their submissions.
Kerry Daniel, of Oamaru, said there were many ways to better manage the areas without commercialising the sites.
Other facilities such as the Forrester Gallery and libraries were subsidised by ratepayers, and he believed the camping areas should be treated similarly if they could not be made to break even.
Commercialising the areas could make them unaffordable for the average person, he said.
Nichol Reid, of Oamaru, feared access to the shores and lakes would be affected, particularly by a proposal to allow buildings up to 10m high on up to 25% of leased sites.
That would be completely out of character and more detail was needed about what could be built and where.
Bill Pile, of Hilderthorpe, had a message for councillors: ''Lakes are a family affair. We don't need you folks poking your nose in.''
The council should leave things the way they were and not add extra costs, he said. He believed existing fees should ''be more than enough'' to cover costs such as ''collecting a bit of rubbish''.
Outram resident Peter Frost, who owns a holiday home in Otematata, said he would rather subsidise the camping as a ratepayer than lose the amenity values that unhindered access provided.
He described the plan as a ''thoroughly unwelcome process to thousands of Kiwis from all over the South Island''.
Ben Aubrey, of Omarama, said management needed to show which camps were successful and which were not.
Upgrading facilities would come at considerable cost, he said.
Camp fees did not have to rise, but everybody should also pay their share, including day trippers.
Former Oamaru resident Earl Robinson, who now lives in Christchurch, said not enough effort was made to collect fees from campers.
He said a suggested fee of $460 for a season ticket was ''way over the top'' for the number of days a family would use a site compared with paying $15 a night.
A workshop will be held next week, then the committee will reconsider the plan on March 18. A final decision by the council is planned for April 1.
