Rotorua's All Seasons Holiday Park manager Tracie Thornborough spoke to Rotorua Lakes Council members. Photo: Laura Smith / LDR
A Rotorua holiday park manager wants the council to clamp down on freedom camping rules, saying users do not support local business.
Users of one site claim otherwise and have detailed how they abide by rules and spend money on seeing the sights, shopping for food, and visiting local attractions.
Rotorua's All Seasons Holiday Park manager Tracie Thornborough spoke to Rotorua Lakes Council members at a meeting on Wednesday.
In her view, freedom campers did not support local businesses, and she wanted the council to do as others had in making efforts to ensure such tourists complied with the rules.
Thornborough told councillors Rotorua has nine commercial holiday parks and eight freedom camping spots within 25 minutes of travel of each other.
"These spots are not supporting local businesses as such, and there aren't just homeless living there."
She did not believe freedom campers spent money in town, on small businesses, or on tourism, and said they negatively impacted the country's "clean green" image.
While holiday parks paid "tens of thousands" in fees to the council to operate, she said freedom camping spots meant such businesses were bypassed.
Guests staying at holiday parks felt safe, she said, and they acted as an i-site, "by telling them all the amazing things they can do in our beautiful town".
Thornborough's view was that those guests then stayed longer and spent more money, which was aided by her park offering a third night free.
She claimed some travellers never ventured into town from the freedom camping spots and said vans parked up at the Hamurana site didn't move for days.
Thornborough looked at three spots on Tuesday night and counted 37 campers.
While the rules were to stay for no more than two nights, she did not believe the council was moving freedom campers on as it would have to pay a callout fee and the parks and reserves team did not work after 5pm.
She believed the council should also ensure only certified self-contained vehicles stayed, as other councils had.
"If [the] council want to make the rules then they should abide by them."
In her view, it should be a user-pays system and there should be no freedom camping spots "in a tourism destination".
"They shouldn't travel over and stay for free."
From shopping to sightseeing, freedom campers say they spend
The council allows overnight parking at six council sites for two nights in a row.
Only two are free, including the Hamurana site which has 10 spots for self-contained vehicles.
A council spokesman said active enforcement required considerable resourcing and therefore cost, and campers were often gone when it did get there after receiving a complaint.
"If still there, people are spoken to, informed of available holiday parks and camping areas and moved on."
There is a rural callout fee which is charged by a security firm. Inner-city callouts are covered by its Safe City Teams which operates until 10pm, and that will extend to 2am in summer.
There are fewer than 100 car parks across all sites.
Local Democracy Reporting visited the Hamurana camping site on Friday morning.
Among the overnight visitors were backpackers Dora Misek, from Croatia, and Dick Voorend, from the Netherlands.
Rotorua was the last stop in an 11-month trip around New Zealand.
Misek said she understood Thornborough's position, and said there were pluses and minuses to freedom camping sites.
She believed most people respected the rules, including leaving things clean and tidy. From what residents had told her on walks, it was locals who left freedom camping spots untidy.
Speaking about how freedom campers tended to spend money, she said it depended on where the sites were.
For instance, the Hamurana site was opposite the springs, which the couple would pay to visit that morning.
They rafted the Kaituna River the day before with a local operator.
Voorend said they visit bars and restaurants near the sites they stayed at.
Backpackers Dora Misek from Croatia and Dick Voorend from the Netherlands. Photo: Laura Smith / LDR
Misek suggested a donation box be left at the sites to help pay for things such as maintaining the toilet facilities, and said if everyone put in $2 it would quickly add up.
Across the car park were German backpackers Konstantin Barta and Sebastian Rosta.
It was their first full day in the district and they were looking at local sights and considering going to Luge Rotorua.
The day before they had visited Kuirau Park, shopped in town, bought groceries and ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant.
"I think it's such a great opportunity to have these places.
"You can see it's not messy. I've not seen any trash at any of these places," Barta said.
He said he had not stayed at one site longer than two nights.
Rosta thought a donation box made sense.
"Donate to this place and help keep it clean with that little amount of money."
He thought the two-night rule made sense to allow other campers to use the space too, and did not believe many overstayed.
Changes to self-contained certification
The government is receiving submissions until 1 November on extending the freedom camping transitional period beyond June 2025 for privately owned, self-contained vehicles.
A transition period will enable the existing self-containment certification requirements, known as a blue warrant, to be phased out and eventually replaced with the new requirements, known as a green warrant.
These were issued for those certified after 7 June this year, and from 7 June, 2025, all vehicles will need to be certified with a green warrant under the new requirements, which include needing a fixed toilet as opposed to a portable one.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.