Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said the council wanted to bring the community along as it developed its plans for a beloved area of Oamaru and the district as a whole.
"We're all really passionate about the area and there's going to be some conflicting ideas and thoughts, but I think there's a lot of agreement," Mr Kircher said. "It's a case of find as many areas of agreement as we can and then work out where there's disagreement. Because there will be a spectrum of thoughts on various things and that's fine ... and that's where we put it all together and then we can go back out and say `Right, did we capture this correctly?"'
An online survey on the council website was to launch today, and a public information session planned for the Oamaru Opera House next Wednesday would introduce the community engagement and explain the masterplan development process.
In a council statement Mr Kircher said after recent discussions with the community the council decided to "change tack" and broaden the scope of the plan before planning work began.
Earlier the council had planned to update a 2011 harbour plan and bring it to the community for consultation.
Now, the council would use this first round of consultation to develop a plan that it would then take out for a second round of engagement with the community.
"At the moment it's people feed in what are the things they like about the harbour, what are the things they think need to be improved, what don't they like - getting feedback like that - and no doubt there will be plenty of comment on things like ziplines," he said.
"We think ... the council working with the community has done a good job of making the space what it is," he said. "We don't think we're needing to reinvent anything too much there, it's really about fine-tuning, updating, getting a bit more detail in than what we've had in the past about what people like, what people don't like, etc."
As the council developed a vision and guidelines for the harbour area, its influence on the surrounding areas especially motorvehicle traffic, cycling and walking would be considered.
