KiwiCamp fees make freedom camping sustainable, says owner
The man behind a possible techsavvy solution to freedom camping wants to roll out his technology to the rest of New Zealand.
KiwiCamp founder Chris Wagner says his model has been so successful in Marlborough that he is confident it could make freedom camping more sustainable across the country.
The KiwiCamp site outside Blenheim was launched in March last year. It is free for campers to stay, but users pay for extras, such as showers, laundry and charging ports, using a smartphone app.
Wagner said the site had about 1400 campers stay there since March last year.
‘‘We’ve been inundated for the last four to five months, we’re full every night.
‘‘We’ve been averaging about 30 vans a night so it’s been really successful,’’ Wagner said.
With his success, Wagner said he had been in talks to other councils in New Zealand.
‘‘We’re talking to Kaiko¯ura District Council about making their new infrastructure along the new state highway sustainable by having [the] user pay.
‘‘We’ve put it to Christchurch City Council and they are really keen on it and it’s about how the public sector and private sector should come together, we’re still trying to figure out the best way to do that,’’ Wagner said.
Wagner said the reason he developed KiwiCamp was to ‘‘make infrastructure sustainable’’ and to ‘‘help out councils’’.
‘‘The pick-up by the local coun- cil has been quite slow, you look at Koromiko, every day ratepayers are paying to empty those rubbish bins and clean those toilets,’’ Wagner said.
The busy year meant Wagner was looking at expanding the Riverlands campsite or shift to a new location.
‘‘There are a couple of things I messed up about it, I built it too small and I built in the middle of my motels and we’ve just been so much more popular than we thought it would be and we need to make it twice as big,’’ Wagner said.
He said because his site had users pay for extra benefits, it was a long-term sustainable solution.
Christchurch City Council head of parks Brent Smith confirmed he met with Wagner but they had not taken their discussions further.
‘‘Because of the workload involved in the long-term plan preparation, staff have not taken the idea any further yet,’’ Smith said.
Marlborough District Council reserves and amenities manager Jane Tito said the council was keen to keep all aspects of freedom camping ‘‘free’’ and did not want to charge for amenities.
‘‘People can come and stay on the council camping areas at no cost at all, so why would we move into that?
‘‘Even if people book out a park for a wedding or anything like that there’s no cost,’’ she said.
Tito said from December 1 last year to January 11 this year, there had been 2400 visitors to councilowned freedom camping sites. This was a growth of 45 to 50 per cent compared to the holiday period from December 1, 2016 to January 31 last year, she said.
So far this holiday season, there were 18 infringements issued from December 1 last year to January 12, compared to 37 infringements from December 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017. ‘‘We have not had any major issues reported aside from a rubbish capacity issue at the Rai Valley’s Alfred Stream area. This has since been sorted.
‘‘We have had higher numbers at both Rai Valley sites [Alfred Stream and Brown River] and this may or may not be related to a change in the way freedom camping is now managed in Nelson,’’ she said.
Nelson’s new freedom camping bylaw that came to effect on December 1 included a ban on non self-contained vehicles in the central city, directing them to official campgrounds and private accommodation facilities.