Watercare fee increase

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chimera

431 posts

Ultimate Geek

#196481 1-Jun-2016 19:55

And people wonder why Auckland house prices are so expensive. Watercare are robbers. Yet another increase (I've lost count of the number of "2.5% increases" over the years), also means the house build I'm looking at doing in Snells Beach goes up again (watercare infrastructure growth charges - basically a contribution cost - are $27k, that is daylight bloody robbery) That's on top of $12k building contribution fees of course, not to mention resource consent and building consent fees. I'm totally over the council and it's only going to get worse when the unitary plan comes in (yes worse, it's more restrictive than before)

https://www.watercare.co.nz/about-watercare/news/Pages/Water-and-wastewater-price-changes-effective-1-July-2016.aspx

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2514 posts

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#1563940 2-Jun-2016 06:18

A friend of mine with a relatively new septic tank is being forced to pay for a sewerage connection then don't want, don't need and can't actually afford.

darylblake

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#1563952 2-Jun-2016 07:46

This is what comes with building.

Yes absolutely the council and watercare are extremely poorly run organisations, where the people working there are either monkeys or trying to justify their existance. There is soo much waste going on, its even starting to upset local government now as they are not budging on the unitary plan. And I have absolutely no doubt that behind immigration, this problem is absolutely a massive contributing factor to the current housing crisis. Its probably on par with all the interest rate cuts we have had. Anyone who doesn't deal with the council wont see it in that light but the numbers don't lie. We need to build 13,000 houses a year in auckland just to keep up with the demand. And our council is only pushing through about 9000. So we have a deficit of 4000 per year. My building company also said that they are sending a lot of building consents and section 92's ( sub divisions ) to be approved to a team in wellington because they are so overloaded.

I know this because I am in the process of building a second property and I am feeling it too.

Last project i built in 2013/2014 was about a $25K development contribution. (WHICH THEY ARE NOT USING TO UPGRADE STORMWATER) they are spending it on parks and reserves.

In the current project they are making me pay for manholes to be put in because their stormwater management is so poor, so they can have access to the stormwater line, I am paying for water retention/detention tanks on top of that. I dont even have a clue as to what the other council imposed costs are going to be yet, and some of the inspectors are really over the top strict and others are loose units, there is absolutely no consistency.

Im on my second project now, but one thing I have learned is just to suck it up and pay the costs and get it done asap, otherwise the costs will just go up.

TLDR: Council has too many cheifs and not enough indians.

Linuxluver

5615 posts

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#1563953 2-Jun-2016 07:56

chimera: And people wonder why Auckland house prices are so expensive. Watercare are robbers. Yet another increase (I've lost count of the number of "2.5% increases" over the years), also means the house build I'm looking at doing in Snells Beach goes up again (watercare infrastructure growth charges - basically a contribution cost - are $27k, that is daylight bloody robbery) That's on top of $12k building contribution fees of course, not to mention resource consent and building consent fees. I'm totally over the council and it's only going to get worse when the unitary plan comes in (yes worse, it's more restrictive than before)

https://www.watercare.co.nz/about-watercare/news/Pages/Water-and-wastewater-price-changes-effective-1-July-2016.aspx

If you don't pay for your water connection....someone else will have to. Those numbers you cite may be cheap, depending on how much digging is required to connect your property to the main supply...and someone had to pay to get the main supply to your street and your site. I recently paid $20,000 to have my own water connection relocated because there was a leak they couldn't find (a million-litre, $3,500 / month leak) because my 30yo old water connection was under 5 houses built later....and developers aren't very good about paying attention to details or regulations. That's another reason why the costs seem high. Anyway, I got Watercare to connect me to a new metre in a different street.....and I paid them about $700 for the meter move...then the $20,000 was a private contractor who connected my house to that....130m away. Driveway re-asphalted. Fibre ducting also installed at the same time.

I have no problems with the Council or Watercare. If people want to live in stand-alone dwellings in a far-flung suburbs they MUST understand this is the most expensive infrastructure possible - lots of it to serve a small population. They'll be moaning about their rates next.....all self-inflicted. Enjoy the beach. :-)

The unitary plan will allow greater density and more efficient use of existing infrastructure, effectively making it cheaper per household over time.....especially for people in apartment buildings and townhouses. I guess you could save money by using only roof water and installing a septic tank.....but then you're up for a huge bill there, too.....plus ongoing costs and maintenance...and times when you have to buy water because it doesn't rain.

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Linuxluver

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#1563957 2-Jun-2016 08:07

darylblake:

This is what comes with building.

Yes absolutely the council and watercare are extremely poorly run organisations, where the people working there are either monkeys or trying to justify their existance. There is soo much waste going on, its even starting to upset local government now as they are not budging on the unitary plan. And I have absolutely no doubt that behind immigration, this problem is absolutely a massive contributing factor to the current housing crisis. Its probably on par with all the interest rate cuts we have had. Anyone who doesn't deal with the council wont see it in that light but the numbers don't lie. We need to build 13,000 houses a year in auckland just to keep up with the demand. And our council is only pushing through about 9000. So we have a deficit of 4000 per year. My building company also said that they are sending a lot of building consents and section 92's ( sub divisions ) to be approved to a team in wellington because they are so overloaded.

I know this because I am in the process of building a second property and I am feeling it too.

Last project i built in 2013/2014 was about a $25K development contribution. (WHICH THEY ARE NOT USING TO UPGRADE STORMWATER) they are spending it on parks and reserves.

In the current project they are making me pay for manholes to be put in because their stormwater management is so poor, so they can have access to the stormwater line, I am paying for water retention/detention tanks on top of that. I dont even have a clue as to what the other council imposed costs are going to be yet, and some of the inspectors are really over the top strict and others are loose units, there is absolutely no consistency.

Im on my second project now, but one thing I have learned is just to suck it up and pay the costs and get it done asap, otherwise the costs will just go up.

TLDR: Council has too many cheifs and not enough indians.

To be fair, neo-liberal ideology has imposed an outsourcing model on Councils that has added complexity, significantly reduced service levels and made everything more expensive (though each piece looks cheaper). if the quality of staff at Councils is low it's because too many people think a bureaucrat is a waste of money ...so they are not paid very well. The *managers* may be paid well.....but the people at the coal-face....not so much.....and many of them are contractors filling a limited order....and have no power or authority to do anything else.

We inflicted all this on ourselves when Roger Douglas became finance minister in 1984....and no government since has lifted a finger to roll back the madness.

The massive waste we all moan about is BECAUSE to moved to a piece-meal "efficient" (not) funder / provider / contractor outsourced model. It's inherently wasteful and unconscious.....and people keep voting for National (and their local clones) because this is supposedly how things should work........while moaning all day every day about how it doesn't work and it's massively wasteful.

Make up your mind. The big picture says to me the last 40 years have been defacto vandalism perpetrated on local and national services by right-wing ideologues.....who love nothing more than to blame someone else.

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chimera

431 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1563960 2-Jun-2016 08:14

darylblake:

This is what comes with building.

Yes absolutely the council and watercare are extremely poorly run organisations, where the people working there are either monkeys or trying to justify their existance. There is soo much waste going on, its even starting to upset local government now as they are not budging on the unitary plan. And I have absolutely no doubt that behind immigration, this problem is absolutely a massive contributing factor to the current housing crisis. Its probably on par with all the interest rate cuts we have had. Anyone who doesn't deal with the council wont see it in that light but the numbers don't lie. We need to build 13,000 houses a year in auckland just to keep up with the demand. And our council is only pushing through about 9000. So we have a deficit of 4000 per year. My building company also said that they are sending a lot of building consents and section 92's ( sub divisions ) to be approved to a team in wellington because they are so overloaded.

I know this because I am in the process of building a second property and I am feeling it too.

Last project i built in 2013/2014 was about a $25K development contribution. (WHICH THEY ARE NOT USING TO UPGRADE STORMWATER) they are spending it on parks and reserves.

In the current project they are making me pay for manholes to be put in because their stormwater management is so poor, so they can have access to the stormwater line, I am paying for water retention/detention tanks on top of that. I dont even have a clue as to what the other council imposed costs are going to be yet, and some of the inspectors are really over the top strict and others are loose units, there is absolutely no consistency.

Im on my second project now, but one thing I have learned is just to suck it up and pay the costs and get it done asap, otherwise the costs will just go up.

TLDR: Council has too many cheifs and not enough indians.

Also sounds like my last project. I had a house with cross lease section on the rear, but because the section had been cross leased in July 1988 but the district rules had changed in January 1988, we had to go through a massive resource consent process, getting land use consent and finally shift to a subdivision. We had overkill on engineering for stormwater, massive contribution costs (even paying for a manhole at the top of our section, because the stormwater grates off the road went into a 5m pipe and emptied onto our land - WE had to pay to direct it to an open drain) We had to pay for vector to run power from over the road, water IGC costs, it was $70k over budget and thats with over-estimated budget costs in the first place. Because it took 2 years to complete, it blew out our holding costs. Here's a basic run down:

$7,000 engineering

$2,000 legal costs

$14,500 surveying / planning

$11,000 resource and building consents

$10,000 vector power cable

$18,000 watercare IGC charges

$26,000 stormwater manholes, detention tanks, dispersal bars (massively over engineered)

$28,000 holding costs

Then of course on top of that there were building costs, insurance, draughtsman, electrical/water/phone to house, excavations, $10k concrete driveway, landscaping etc etc...

Ridiculous. And they wonder why they have a housing shortage in Auckland.

The problem is we have a National led govt with a Labour led council (in terms of how they each want to run the country)

Not to turn this into a political debate, but IMO the Helen Clarke govt over a decade ago managed to get the unemployment rate "lower" by simply creating 30,000+ bureaucratic council related jobs over the period they were in power. As you say, too many Chiefs and not enough Indians - there are far too many paper pushing dick swingers who create procedure and policy for us all to abide by, rather than putting those people in the jobs that need the most attention. This turned councils from a public service into a highly profitable business. They should have spent more money on expanding infrastructure to sort motorways, parks, opened up more land for residential etc and employed people in THOSE jobs rather than Council desk jockeys.

MikeB4

15555 posts

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Inactive user

#1563967 2-Jun-2016 09:03

The provision of high quality sustainable water supply and environmentally responsible waste disposal does not come cheap and needs to be paid for by the owner/user or through general taxation. The most appropriate method of funding is in my mind the former that is owner/user.

May I ask though lets stop the name calling of those who work in the service provision and look at the system only.

chimera

431 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1563977 2-Jun-2016 09:27

It's an open forum and people can express how they feel.

Agreed it needs to be paid for by someone, and I'm more than happy to pay my fair share - but therein lies my point, a "fair" share. In Auckland I metro area I believe IGC is about $12k. Perhaps a little bit too much, perhaps not. In Snells Beach $27k IGC - DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. That is a *considerable* amount.

If everyone is ok with the costs incurred to build then everyone also just needs to suck it up and accept why Auckland house prices are high. In my case the total build with land is around $870k. That is still under "Auckland average" (now $955k or so,... they really should quote the median) but regardless is a crapload of money.

MikeB4

15555 posts

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#1563978 2-Jun-2016 09:30

chimera: It's an open forum and people can express how they feel.

Agreed it needs to be paid for by someone, and I'm more than happy to pay my fair share - but therein lies my point, a "fair" share. In Auckland I metro area I believe IGC is about $12k. Perhaps a little bit too much, perhaps not. In Snells Beach $27k IGC - DAYLIGHT ROBBERY. That is a *considerable* amount.

If everyone is ok with the costs incurred to build then everyone also just needs to suck it up and accept why Auckland house prices are high. In my case the total build with land is around $870k. That is still under "Auckland average" (now $955k or so,... they really should quote the median) but regardless is a crapload of money.

It maybe a forum but respectfully you may like to review the FUG http://www.geekzone.co.nz/content.asp?contentid=1046

chimera

431 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1563986 2-Jun-2016 09:43

Respectfully, after reading those rules I don't see that I broke any rules. Perhaps:

"the post contains abuse towards any person, Geekzone user or not;"

There is no intent to abuse to any individual, it is simply my opinion that there are too many positions at the council where, under an alternate govt, these could have been better utilized by providing employment in positions that expand infrastructure instead so we don't end up with the issues we have in Auckland right now.

I also still stand by my point that council and watercare contributions and charges are excessive.

MikeB4

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#1563989 2-Jun-2016 09:46

It is hard to compare these costs with other center's, the costsame for each will be unique much in the same way providing energy and communications connections.

deadlyllama

1018 posts

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#1564092 2-Jun-2016 11:10

Adding you to the network has a marginal cost that has to be paid by someone. As one of the other posters said, infrastructure per dwelling is more expensive when your city insists on sprawling medium density suburbia.

If Auckland is too expensive, I hear there are other towns and cities in the country that are more affordable to live in. We moved to Whanganui (from Wellington) a few years back and don't regret it one bit. I told one of our Auckland friends what our rates bill was and he complained until he told me about his water bill and I said "Water bill? What's that?" He pays more for water than we pay rates in total!

chimera

431 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1564120 2-Jun-2016 11:37

More for water than rates, lol! I'd believe it.

A bit hard to move out of Auckland when both my wife and I have jobs here, kids established in schools, friends and family here etc. Anyhow the build I'm looking at is an investment anyway - but by building new at least it's adding to the housing shortage regardless of whether it's going to become a rental. People need to live somewhere.

Again my main point is, all these increases are half the reason why Auckland house prices are so high. Creates a supply / demand issue. Council should be encouraging growth by making consent process cheaper and more efficient, not stagnating it by increasing cost and having bureaucratic process. Who knows how the new unitary plan is gonna pan out - lets just hope it's for the better. I know there is no provision for minor dwellings in the new unitary plan so there goes the home and income idea (or helping granny out by having her live close by!!!)

old3eyes

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#1564275 2-Jun-2016 13:53

Watercare Auckland are a pack of robbers and have become more so since the formation of the so called super city. My water bill for two people is about $35 / month. My M-in-law in Tauranga pays that per quarter..

Will be absolutely glad to leave this tax and spend council in a year or two..

Regards,

Old3eyes

Linuxluver

5615 posts

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#1564290 2-Jun-2016 14:11

chimera:

darylblake:

This is what comes with building.

Yes absolutely the council and watercare are extremely poorly run organisations, where the people working there are either monkeys or trying to justify their existance. There is soo much waste going on, its even starting to upset local government now as they are not budging on the unitary plan. And I have absolutely no doubt that behind immigration, this problem is absolutely a massive contributing factor to the current housing crisis. Its probably on par with all the interest rate cuts we have had. Anyone who doesn't deal with the council wont see it in that light but the numbers don't lie. We need to build 13,000 houses a year in auckland just to keep up with the demand. And our council is only pushing through about 9000. So we have a deficit of 4000 per year. My building company also said that they are sending a lot of building consents and section 92's ( sub divisions ) to be approved to a team in wellington because they are so overloaded.

I know this because I am in the process of building a second property and I am feeling it too.

Last project i built in 2013/2014 was about a $25K development contribution. (WHICH THEY ARE NOT USING TO UPGRADE STORMWATER) they are spending it on parks and reserves.

In the current project they are making me pay for manholes to be put in because their stormwater management is so poor, so they can have access to the stormwater line, I am paying for water retention/detention tanks on top of that. I dont even have a clue as to what the other council imposed costs are going to be yet, and some of the inspectors are really over the top strict and others are loose units, there is absolutely no consistency.

Im on my second project now, but one thing I have learned is just to suck it up and pay the costs and get it done asap, otherwise the costs will just go up.

TLDR: Council has too many cheifs and not enough indians.

Also sounds like my last project. I had a house with cross lease section on the rear, but because the section had been cross leased in July 1988 but the district rules had changed in January 1988, we had to go through a massive resource consent process, getting land use consent and finally shift to a subdivision. We had overkill on engineering for stormwater, massive contribution costs (even paying for a manhole at the top of our section, because the stormwater grates off the road went into a 5m pipe and emptied onto our land - WE had to pay to direct it to an open drain) We had to pay for vector to run power from over the road, water IGC costs, it was $70k over budget and thats with over-estimated budget costs in the first place. Because it took 2 years to complete, it blew out our holding costs. Here's a basic run down:

$7,000 engineering

$2,000 legal costs

$14,500 surveying / planning

$11,000 resource and building consents

$10,000 vector power cable

$18,000 watercare IGC charges

$26,000 stormwater manholes, detention tanks, dispersal bars (massively over engineered)

$28,000 holding costs

Then of course on top of that there were building costs, insurance, draughtsman, electrical/water/phone to house, excavations, $10k concrete driveway, landscaping etc etc...

Ridiculous. And they wonder why they have a housing shortage in Auckland.

The problem is we have a National led govt with a Labour led council (in terms of how they each want to run the country)

Not to turn this into a political debate, but IMO the Helen Clarke govt over a decade ago managed to get the unemployment rate "lower" by simply creating 30,000+ bureaucratic council related jobs over the period they were in power. As you say, too many Chiefs and not enough Indians - there are far too many paper pushing dick swingers who create procedure and policy for us all to abide by, rather than putting those people in the jobs that need the most attention. This turned councils from a public service into a highly profitable business. They should have spent more money on expanding infrastructure to sort motorways, parks, opened up more land for residential etc and employed people in THOSE jobs rather than Council desk jockeys.

Some one has to plan things with an overview. They have obtain the overview somehow. I can see your list of expensive items and it is impressive. You say they over-estimated....then say it was way over budget. So they under-estimated? Whatever. It's all annoying and expensive.

I don't know anything about the property you built on.....it's soil, situation, drainage, distance from existing services (roads, sewers, etc). I do know that every time I have to dig a hole I better get at least $5,000 out....so yeah. Then whatever you put in the hole it has to good enough to last 50 years or more. That means it absolutely needs to be done right in the right place...and sufficient for the purpose. That isn't back-of-an-envelope stuff. It takes expertise and that costs money....as in your list.

I'm looking at building a house in the next year or two. I'm sure it will cost me an arm and two legs. But we aren't erecting shanties in a slum in Rio. It has to be done right. I've seen what happens when the house-building cowboys ride the range unsupervised. Supervising the incompetents and the cheaters costs money. Those are the desk jockeys. Worth their weight in gold to home buyers (if they do their jobs right).......if not home builders.

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mattwnz

16850 posts

Uber Geek

#1564297 2-Jun-2016 14:20

chimera: And people wonder why Auckland house prices are so expensive. Watercare are robbers. Yet another increase (I've lost count of the number of "2.5% increases" over the years), also means the house build I'm looking at doing in Snells Beach goes up again (watercare infrastructure growth charges - basically a contribution cost - are $27k, that is daylight bloody robbery) That's on top of $12k building contribution fees of course, not to mention resource consent and building consent fees. I'm totally over the council and it's only going to get worse when the unitary plan comes in (yes worse, it's more restrictive than before)

https://www.watercare.co.nz/about-watercare/news/Pages/Water-and-wastewater-price-changes-effective-1-July-2016.aspx

Isn't the infrastructure fee paid when the subdivision occurs? So it would be the developer who pays it when the title for the land is issued. At least that is how it works with my local council, as I have been through the process. I think there is a small connection fee to the water in the hundreds by the property owner when house is built. . Our local council hasn't been permitted to have water metering yet. So we pay a set rate for water. Paying for water based on usage is Bit of a con because you are using the same infrastructure no matter how much water you use. If water levels are low they restrict everyone's have anyway. Then you have overseas companies profiting on our water by selling it overseas, and paying hardly anything for it. Don't you how kiwis love to do other kiwis off., these overseas composites must be laughing at us.

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