Regional Council searching for lake mooring owners

For immediate release: 19 December 2012

Bay of Plenty Regional Council is surveying Rotorua lakes during the next few months to find out who owns hundreds of moorings.

Most moorings on the Rotorua Lakes don’t have resource consent or approval under the Regional Council’s navigation and safety bylaws, and they require both.

The Regional Council’s manager of Maritime Operations Reuben Fraser said there were no ‘official’ mooring areas designated on any of Rotorua’s lakes, but moorings had been installed by many boat owners over the years.

“We are not sure about how many are out there, but there are likely to be hundreds. Many of them have never been properly authorised and we want to ensure they are properly registered as simply as possible,” he said.

The moorings needed to be registered and have a resource consent to ensure the safety of all lake users, and to ensure illegal moorings did not proliferate in the lakes. During the next few months all moorings in Rotorua lakes would be surveyed and basic details collected, including what sort of structure they were and the GPS location.

“Once we know what moorings exist and where they are, a plan will be put in place to get them all legalised. We want to make the process as streamlined and efficient as possible, but first we need to understand how many moorings we have and who they belong to.”

Any cost for registering the moorings would go through a public process, with owners able to make submissions.

“No moorings that appear to not have an owner will be removed until all avenues to contact owners are exhausted,” Mr Fraser said. Mooring owners can email details of their mooring, with a photo if possible, to info@boprc.govt.nz or contact a Regional Council Water Administration Officer on 0800 884 880.

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