Camp swaps tents for cabins

A favourite Coromandel campsite is phasing out tents to make way for new cabins. Photo / Thinkstock.

A popular camping ground on the Coromandel is to phase out more than half of its tent sites to make way for more cabins and villas.

But Hahei Holiday Resort director Ian Carter said development of the 6.7ha beachfront campground would take place over 45 years so the tent spaces would not be removed immediately.

The Carter family, who farmed the land before the 50-year-old campground was set up, have been given approval from Thames-Coromandel District Council to redevelop the site under a long-term plan.

The development, to be undertaken as tourism demands, allows for the building of roofed accommodation including more cabins and villas, and the reduction of 325 tent sites to 150.

"It gives us the opportunity to provide accommodation all year round where people only want to use tent sites basically for six weeks to two months of the year,'' Mr Carter said.

The resort could cater to a maximum of 1275 people, including caravans and campervans, but Mr Carter said campgrounds struggled with occupancy levels of only 14 per cent annually compared with motels at about 60 per cent.

It had taken nearly five years of planning to get resource consent - a process which included a two-day hearing last October where 26 submissions were heard against the development and 20 were heard in support.

Exactly when the tent sites would be phased out depended on the economic climate and changes in camping patterns, Mr Carter said.

"At the moment there's a swing back to camping but this summer has actually shown up that [camping] is fine if it's a nice sunny day and cloudless nights - but as soon as there's a bit of rain, everybody packs up and goes home. That impacts greatly on
camping grounds all over the place.''

Mr Carter said the family had concept plans spanning between five and 45 years.

Hahei Reserves Committee member Karen Blair said the group objected to the private plan change because there was no landscape plan and because it was concerned about a public area along Wigmore Stream at one end of the camp.

"If the motor camp, in its long-term development, ever becomes subdivided, then that piece of potential reserve along Wigmore Stream should come back to the public and if the camp is allowed to build on this potential reserve, then the chances of the public
getting it back are quite slim.''