Cardinal West is one of many housing developments near Westgate, in north-west Auckland. Photo: Sharon Brettkelly
It is a problem that is starting to stink - literally.
Hundreds of brand-new homes in the Cardinal West development near the Auckland suburb of Massey have not been hooked up to a permanent sewerage system.
Instead, the waste from 341 households was being pumped to temporary tanks before being trucked away.
The council had already received complaints about the smell.
A Watercare spokesperson said the tank system was an interim measure, until permanent wastewater infrastructure could be established.
That was supposed happen this year, but the completion date had been revised to late 2025.
Henderson-Massey local board chairperson Chris Carter told Checkpoint the situation was a "real wake-up call" for Auckland Council, in terms of having infrastructure in place before developments got underway.
Cardinal West was the first development in Auckland to proceed with a temporary wastewater system, he said.
"I guess it's part of this push two years ago to try and open up more homes for Aucklanders, where there is an acute housing shortage."
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Carter said new housing was usually built in existing suburbs - referred to as brownfield development - where infrastructure was already in place.
But the Cardinal West development - part of the new Redhills suburb near Westgate - was just farmland, he said.
"Somehow or other, there was an undertaking by the developer that he would get [wastewater systems] in place. The council said, 'OK if you don't get it in place we'll have a very temporary, holding solution, where we'd put it in big tanks and take it away in trucks.'
"Well, that short-term solution is now ... at least a year and a half away, and it's just not good enough.
"I hope we never have a situation again where in greenfields development the infrastructure is not in place before people are living there."
Carter said he had not been aware of the issue until "irate" residents started complaining to Auckland Council.
It had been "a real eye-opener" and had highlighted the council needed a "bit of a rev up", he said.
In future, he said the Henderson-Massey local board would be making sure no resource consents were signed off on greenfields development if permanent infrastructure was not in place.
The council had been "very optimistic" about the developer's timeframe for installing a wastewater system, having been told that "if there was a gap, it would be a very short one", he said.
'It's a lesson learned. It's been a mistake, and that should not have happened."
There had been a number of issues with the temporary system, Carter said.
"There's been smell with pumping out the tanks, a little bit of leakage and great big trucks coming down to take the stuff away...
"There's 341 houses, in which 301 have got people living in them. And they've got these trucks coming very regularly... so there's noise and there's some bad smells.. so it's not a good situation."
Carter - who was Minister of Housing under Helen Clark's Labour government, when the leaky buildings crisis emerged - said those problems had been caused by developers taking a "short cut".
"They thought if builders were free to build houses without restrictions it would all be great, and you'd get houses built. Well, we got leaky homes. You've got to have the rules in place, and you've got to follow them."
Houses in the new development were not cheap either, he said.
"People's life savings have gone into them - their dream of a home. And they'll all have whopping big mortgages and this is a really sad situation."
Watercare and the council were "onto it", he said, but the new sewerage system had to go through private land, and agreements sought.
"It's a complete stuff-up, it should never have happened."
A spokesperson for Cardinal West developer Myland Partners said Watercare operated wastewater facilities and it would not comment any further.
