The council has decided not to go ahead with a proposal to lease out to private management camps at Falstone and Sailor's Cutting on Lake Benmore, and Loch Laird, Otematata Wildlife, Otematata Boat Harbour and Parsons Rock, on Lake Aviemore.
Its community services committee had recommended the council retain management for two years, but earlier this week at the instigation of Cr June Slee it increased that to three years.
That will allow time to initiate changes at the camps, improve management and look at financial opportunities.
At present, the camp sites run at a loss and are subsidised by ratepayers.
Cr Slee said two years was too short, giving one season to introduce changes and another to see how they worked.
However, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher felt two years was enough - at the end of that period if the council wanted it could approve an extension.
In a separate decision, aimed at resolving a lengthy dispute over the ownership of the Ohau C camping reserve on Lake Benmore, the council agreed to negotiating a management contract with neighbours The Cairn Station Ltd to run it.
That company has the lease for Glencairn Station and the Ohau C land was originally taken from the farm when the upper Waitaki power scheme was built.
At that time, a promise was made to return any surplus land to the station, and that was sought by the present lessees.
Recreation manager Erik van der Spek said law changes since then had affected the original promise.
Negotiations to resolve ownership and future management of the camping ground had reached an agreement whereby the council would accept from the department of Conservation management and control of the Ohau C reserve, and the council would lease Ohau C to the station company under terms to be negotiated by council chief executive Michael Ross.
Over recent years, the station had been managing the reserve for the council while ownership issues were being negotiated, an arrangement which had been praised by campers.
