New Plymouth residents say proposed water charge changes will be unfair

RNZ News

4 days ago

One resident says every dwelling should have its own meter just as they did for electricity and for gas.
Photo:
LDR / Emily Ireland
New Plymouth councillors have been told proposed changes to how water is charged for will be unfair to people living in apartments or on cross-lease sections with multiple dwellings.
Currently ratepayers are charged a flat $547 for water, but from 2027 they will be billed at least in part according to volume of water used.
Council is considering three options for how those charges would be levied.
Fixed charge plus a volumetric charge or a fixed charge plus a volumetric charge with a daily allocation of water (100 litres) or fully volumetric charging.
Council received more than 1000 written submissions on the proposals and heard oral presentations at a hearing on Monday.
Elaine Gill spoke on behalf of the residents of the Liardet Apartments in the inner-city.
She said the 25 apartments - a mix of one to three bedroom apartments, nine of which were rentals, one an AirBnB and 15 owner-occupied - would have just one water meter installed for the whole building.
"We want individual council-supplied water meters for each apartment... and there is space where our water is supplied for a meter to be installed."
If that wasn't possible the block's residents wanted a fixed charge - based on average residential use in New Plymouth - with volumetric charging.
Gill
worried about how water use would be calculated
.
"It's totally unfair. There is a need to recognise that each apartment is different, each has a different number of people living there.
"We have one apartment with three bedrooms and one person living in there and one apartment with two bedrooms that has five people living there, and obviously their water usage is going to be very different."
Councillor Sam Bennett asked Gill if the apartment owners would be willing to pay to install individual meters.
Gill didn't think that was a fair solution either.
"If we are talking about equity, if we had 25 individual dwellings in Westown they would all have their own water meter [installed by council].
"Why is it that because we are all packed up one on top of the other that we can't have the same consideration."
John Staddon owned rental properties on a cross-leased section and had received a letter from council saying only one meter would be installed and water costs shared between the dwellings.
"My concern is that the definition of shared needs some further clarification. For example, where there are two properties on a cross-lease section would sharing be on a 50-50 basis?
"If so, what consideration would be made should one of the properties have a family of four, both parents working, two cars, maybe a spa pool, and the other occupant a widow on superanuation?
"The use of water by the family would be far higher than the other occupant. A 50-50 share in this scenario is not equitable. Unless there is a formula that recognises the size of the dwelling and number occupants 50-50 sharing is wrong."
Staddon said every dwelling should have its own meter just as they did for electricity and for gas.
"Payment for electricity or gas is not shared and neither is phone or internet connection, so why then should water charges be."
Staddon said as a landlord he would be willing to drop rents if part of the water charge was removed from his rates bill, but he was not willing to pay for the installation of additional meters.
Veronica Edwards also owned a cross-lease section with two independent households on it.
"Under the current plan we're stuck with one meter. I believe this approach is neither fair or just for people living in multiple dwellings."
Mayor Neil Holdom said that for every dollar invested in meters, council expected to make savings of between $4 and $5 over the life of the meter "but in some cases to install meters in every property it may cost us $4000 to $5000 in plumbing, maybe more".
Submitter Hannah-Miriam Knuckey said if council insisted that additional meters be paid for by property owners it should pay the upfront costs and allow people to pay the meter off via their rates - interest free - over five to 10 years.
Council had so far installed more than 23,000 roadside water meters at a cost of $24 million.
It was envisaged they would eventually save council $40 million in capital expenditure by encouraging efficient water use and identifying leaks.
The meters had already been credited with identifying 180 leaks, saving 1.75 million litres of water daily in New Plymouth, where water usage was up to two times that of other similar-sized communities.
Council would decide on a charging system in August.
A year-long "mock billing" trial would start in July next year to allow households to monitor water use, fix leaks and prepare for volumetric charging in beginning July 2027.
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