ORC is inviting the public to attend its full Council meeting in Queenstown on Wednesday, 19 March, with locals urged to come along and participate.

ORC Chair Gretchen Robertson says as part of its commitment to regional presence throughout Otago, ORC holds regular Council meetings across Otago’s five districts.

This meeting has particularly full agenda and there will be several presentations by specialist ORC staff, she says.

“As always there’ll be a diverse range of subjects considered at this meeting which will give people a chance to sample some of the wide-ranging environmental work ORC undertakes for communities,” she says.

The Council meeting is at the Queenstown Lakes District Council chambers, 10 Gorge Rd, Queenstown and is scheduled to run from 9am-5pm. The full Agenda (and YouTube livestream access) and reports are now available online at orc.govt.nz, under M for meetings.

The Agenda for the day includes an ORC-commissioned report - Te Awa Ōtākou (Otago Harbour) Issues and Opportunities – recommending a collaborative multi-party approach to address increasing pressures on the waterway, plus a separate presentation by Port Otago on its interim report.

There are papers on the options around future air quality management, guided by community engagement and scientific modelling and also discussion around the annual plan and details of work programmes for the year ahead.

There are also papers around the South Dunedin Future programme on risk assessment and potential adaptations in the future, a report on the implication of RMA changes, plus updates on the Waitaki catchment plan, the new Lower Taieri Liaison Group and also a second update on Flood Recovery.

“This is one of the largest Agendas we have had in some time. It reflects many of the varied areas ORC operates in, such as air quality and environmental programmes across Otago, Otago harbour’s wellbeing and how best to go about tackling the future options for South Dunedin,” she says.

Cr Robertson also encourages anyone else who wants to speak at the beginning of the meeting to apply and come along.

“We value people speaking to us on environmental projects or issues they’d like to raise — it’s your time to share your successes, ideas and challenges with us.”

On Thursday (20th) Councillors will go on site visits near Lake Hayes, looking at the work to date around the lake and a separate site visit to a nearby reforestation project, the latter in partnership with QLDC.

*The Regional Leadership Committee meeting in Queenstown, scheduled for Thursday 20 March, has been postponed until 9 April, in Dunedin.

© Scoop Media