Tauranga City Council is sticking with its staged approach to the Rena resource consent application in the face of pleas to take a political stand in support of the community.

A neutral submission on the ship's owners and insurers' application to leave the remaining wreck on the reef, is favoured by Mayor Stuart Crosby and city council consent's team leader Brad Bellamy.

The remains of the wreck at Astrolabe Reef off the coast of Tauranga in January 2012.

Both told councillors at a full council meeting the process is likely to go to the Environment Court and will be extremely technical, with the judge's decisions based on applications, weighing up peer reviewed reports by experts, in the various scientific fields.

Speaking in the public forum at the start of the meeting, former city councillor Murray Guy urged councillors to consider supporting the Motiti Island community.

The 30-50 nearest neighbours to the wreck of the Rena are isolated don't have a city council or district council.

'In effect a lost tribe in a sense,” says Murray.

'Ask yourself if the Rena was on the Mount Main Beach and it was proposed to leave it there, would you be going on with a neutral notification to the Environment Court?”

By opposing the application to leave the remains on Astrolabe Reef, the city council will be showing people it does give a damn, and that it supports the members of its own community, who have suffered directly as a result of the wreck, says Murray.

Spokesman for one of the Motiti hapu, Buddy Mikaere, says Section 5 of the Resource Management Act obliges the court to consider the economic and social well-being of the people affected; the Tauranga and Motiti people affected by the event.

Speaking afterwards, Mayor Stuart Crosby says the resolution is not ‘neutral' it is a resolution for the council to participate in the Environment Court process.

'We passed a resolution, which was to participate in the process, which is the critical thing and also to understand what conditions are involved in the consent so that what we are resolved to do. It's not neutral.

'The key element is what we have decided to do. At each phase of the process and as information becomes available we will be making a decision in terms of our position.

'That's the sensible, correct thing to do. I have always had a personal view that it needs to go and I haven't resiled from that. But from an organisational perspective we have to understand the process and make a sensible, logical, well considered decision at each stage. And that's what we intend to do.”

Coming out as an organisation and taking a stance in favour of, or opposing, the application means committing to obtaining substantial expert evidence.

'And that's hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth,” says Stuart.

Anyone is able to make a submission on an application that is publically notified.

The law is any person can make a submission on the application, which is publicly notified, says Brad.

The council has approved the preparation and the lodgement of a submission to the resource consent application, which details conditions that should be considered in determining the application.

Submissions close August 8.