Rotorua Lakes Council meetings are "temporarily closed" to the public, with the chief executive saying it is "erring on the side of caution".
The council made the announcement after inquiries by Local Democracy Reporting on Tuesday.
A statement on the council website said full council and committee meetings would be"closed to public attendance for the time being ... in light of the presence of Covid-19 in the community outside of Auckland".
The public could still livestream meetings and watch recordings on the council's Youtube page.
"We will monitor and review the situation as required."
Elected members could attend in person or via Zoom and a "provision will be made for media to attend in person if they wish".
"Meetings were also closed to public attendance during alert level 2 following the 2020 lockdown with elected members able to attend via Zoom if they wished."
In April last year, the council admitted editing footage of a council meeting as "confidential items" had been discussed, but said it had not edited "public matters or discussions relating to public matters".
Council staff had been managing numbers in the civic centre under alert level 2 and the public only had direct access to the customer centre, the council said.
"[The] council's meetings have been livestreamed since 2015 and the public is able to watch meetings as they are happening and access full recordings afterwards, both via council's YouTube channel."
Under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, every meeting of a local authority should be open to the public.
However, a modification in the Act allows a meeting to be considered open to the public if the local authority provides a livestream or makes an audio, video or written summary of the meeting available as soon as practicable after the meeting.
That modification will remain in place until the gazetted Epidemic Preparedness (Covid-19) Notice expires or revoked. The notice has been in place and renewed every three months since March 25 last year.
