Through consultation between the regional council and HBRIC's board of directors it had been established the investment company was comfortable with the moratorium.
They did however ask it be specified that the halt on further expenditure would not include that required by HBRIC to comply with its statutory obligations, such as responding to LGOIMA requests, and costs required to value intangible assets to comply with audit requirements
This would also not encompass expenditure needed for directors to comply with their duties to defend and, or maintain the value of the company's assets, to maintain or enhance the value of the current water sales contracts, and to meet the costs of any council requests, including HBRIC's costs for council's review.
However the moratorium would not impact court proceedings under way for HBRIC.
This included the recent decision of the Supreme Court to grant leave of appeal requested by the Hawke's Bay Regional Investment Company (HBRIC) and the Minister of Conservation on a controversial land swap needed for the Ruataniwha dam to proceed.
Their request was to appeal a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal earlier in September, when Forest and Bird argued the land swap of 22ha of the Ruahine Forest Park, for 170ha of land HBRIC would potentially buy from Smedley Station, was unlawful.
Council's decision to not include the court proceedings in the moratorium has come under fire from Greenpeace.
Greenpeace campaigner Genevieve Toop said "it would be misleading of the council to tell the public that a moratorium is in place when in truth it is still supporting a ratepayer-funded legal bid to drown protected conservation land to make way for the Ruataniwha dam". '
"If the council's investment arm pursues and wins this case, 22ha of protected conservation land would be drowned," she said.
"More importantly, it sets a precedent whereby all of New Zealand's specially protected conservation land can have its status downgraded at any time to make way for commercial activities like mining and industrial irrigation."
REVIEW
During yesterday's meeting, councillors agreed on an extensive array of items to be included in the review's scope.
These ranged from advice on withdrawing the scheme, peer reviews of reports, and contracted water uptakes, a review of the efficacy of flushing flows, assessment of alternative dam sites off river main stems, and public consultation if required after the review report.
Councillor Debbie Hewitt said the review was a "very expensive cup of tea", meaning she was looking for assurances that the review covered all issues, and "that if there are any gaps they're brought to light".
"I'm looking for assurances from the councillors, and you [group manager strategic development manager James Palmer] that we're going to get somewhere at the end of this."
Ms Hewitt said of particular concern for her were the implications for Plan Change 6, which could be "horrendous" for the Central Hawke's Bay community.
Another addition to the review had been the creation of a reference group to assist staff. Their main purpose would be to provide advice to the group manager on the process, and their assessment of the adequacy of the review.
It was intended members would be based in Hawke's Bay wherever possible, would include members of the Central Hawke's Bay community, and would hold a wide range of skills.
In his role as group manager strategic development, Mr Palmer was delegated to appoint group members and would report back to council on this.
While concern was voiced of there being critics of the scheme involved, Mr Palmer said he was starting to "run out of people in the region, or even nationally who have not been involved in the scheme to date".
Up to $170,000 of expenditure was approved yesterday
Yesterday councillors also approved the Group Manager Strategic Development could incur expenditure of up to $170,000 to be capitalised to the Ruataniwha Water Storage Scheme.
This would be on external costs for the purposes of completing the review work programme agreed by the council, and would exclude HBRIC costs.