Mark Wootton at the Hibiscus Coast property he wants to develop. Photo: RNZ/Luka Forman
A Watercare decision to restrict new connections to the wastewater network on the Hibiscus Coast is being labelled as disastrous by property developers in the area, who say the organisation has failed to do its job.
Late last year, Watercare revealed that any developments in the area which weren't resource consented by 15 November would not be able to connect to the wastewater network until an upgrade to the Army Bay Wastewater treatment plant was complete, currently scheduled for 2031.
This has left many developers in the lurch, who have said the decision will stifle development in an area that needs more housing.
However, Watercare said it had capacity for 4000 more connections on the Hibiscus Coast before the Army Bay Treatment plant reached capacity, so the restriction wouldn't affect housing growth in the area.
It said the decision had to be made to protect the environment and public health, and deliver sustainable water and wastewater services.
Mark Wootton has a 7000sqm property on the Hibiscus Coast that he wants to build two new townhouses on.
He'd already paid for several geotechnical, landscaping and architectural reports into the property, but hadn't got a resource consent, before finding out in November about the restrictions.
"I was flabbergasted, absolutely gobsmacked. It's a government entity that has a legal responsibility to provide waste processing right? Well they're not meeting that responsibility are they?"
Watercare map of water and wastewater constraints in Auckland. Photo: Watercare
Wootton believes people at Watercare need to lose their jobs for failing to plan properly.
The decision would stifle development in the area, he said.
"People working in this area, they're going to go and get other jobs right? They're going to diversify away," Wootton said.
"Then when we do need that building capacity, when Watercare get their shit-pump working there won't be anyone because it'll have just contracted."
He believes Watercare could come up with quicker solution to the problem - if they are willing to spend the money.
"Ok it might be more expensive to get an urgent shit-pumping upgrade, but it shouldn't be the end of the world. Yes it's more expensive, that's your fault for making a mistake."
Hopper Development has three projects in the works on the Hibiscus Coast which would provide over 100 homes in total - one of them has been in planning for three years.
Development manager David Barr said the company was completely blind-sided by Watercare's decision, and now all of the projects were up in the air.
"There was no warning for this at all. Like everyone else, we heard about this in a press release in November 2024 having bought numerous properties. We were shocked."
There are other options if Hopper Development cannot connect their new sections to the wastewater network - like building wastewater tanks on site, or trucking it away daily at their own expense.
But any alternative would have to be signed off by Watercare according to their code of practice - and Barr said so far they hadn't been able to talk with the agency about any possible solutions.
Halting development in the area for seven years was simply unacceptable, Barr said.
"The amount of housing that's needed out there now, we're already behind so further delays will be disastrous for our area."
The pent-up demand would be bad news for house prices on the peninsula, he said.
If Watercare couldn't provide a better option, central government needed to step in, he said.
Local government minister Simon Watts said it was a matter for Watercare and the Developers to sort out, but a new Watercare charter the government put in place in last week would provide more scrutiny and oversight to the organisation.
Auckland Council's head of resource consents James Hassall said council worked with Watercare when granting resource consents to check there was wastewater capacity available, but that could change over time if land was developed ahead of schedule.
Hassall said as Auckland grows, the city will experience water and wastewater constraints in parts of the network and in the case of the Hibiscus coast, Watercare has planned infrastructure upgrades to deal with the problem.
Watercare responds
Watercare chief planning and strategy officer Priyan Perera told Checkpoint it had to make the decision to restrict new connections to protect the environment, public health and deliver sustainable long term wastewater services.
"So, we're trying to find a real balance between our ability to service growth but also protect those key drivers for us."
They were still able to connect 4000 properties to the wastewater network in the Hibiscus Coast before reaching capacity, Perera said.
"Our current tracking of previous years - there's typically 800 connections made a year, so that's five years of connections available."
He confirmed to Checkpoint that developers were told about the restrictions on 14 November, the day before the cut-off.
"There there is obviously never a good time to be able to relay this information and we chose the date, We chose the timing to ensure that we lived up to those objectives."
Several other areas of Auckland including Wellsford, Warkworth, Waitakere, Otara-Papatoetoe, Beachlands/Maraetai, Favona and Warkworth also have water and wastewater restrictions according to Watercare's online map.
Perera said it was possible these areas might face similar restrictions to the Hibiscus Coast, but Watercare was trying to to avoid that.
"So, now that we've provided the maps and we were encouraging people to come and talk to us, there's absolutely an opportunity for them to have plenty of warning in conversations with to ensure that they can make the make appropriate investment decisions."
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