Port and harbourside land assets are not going "away" anywhere as they had been reclaimed and developed by Dunedin’s ancestors for over a century before ownership was wrongly gifted to the ORC in 1989. It is the ORC that has been stealing the returns from Dunedin’s port and harbourside land from Dunedin for the past 35 years to fund its burgeoning bureaucracy. Because of ORC/Chalmers Properties’ continued leasehold ownership, the ORC has also prevented development of Dunedin’s harbourside while creaming $30 million annually just from harbourside land rents. ORC port inefficiency in a constrained port area has been worsened by failing to organise inland ports, which have been talked about for 20 years. The ORC port property arm also pays extraordinary management salaries, confirmed in last year’s annual report with 14 managers being paid over $250,000 annually and up to a top salary of over $840,000.

Source: Otago Daily Times February 09, 2026 20:10 UTC