Water is a constant source of grievance – all due to overcharging. The Informer sympathises with this and has been publishing the grief of residents for some time, especially last year leading up to the Election and listening to promises of those wanting to be elected.
For some months now, resident Ian Stewart has been trying to get a reasonable answer from TCDC on the legal justification for knowingly massively overcharging residents for water.
A portion of his open letter responding to their latest email is below. Ian believes the council keeps avoiding the question.
Going back to just prior to the election, the TCDC team wrote this as part of a Letter to the Editor in The Informer 16 Sept, 2025.
“We now have Long Term Plan capital funding to undertake this unbundling work in Whitianga starting in 2027/28 financial year. We will also look at retrofitting smart meter technology onto the installed meters to allow them to be read remotely… Two systems are being investigated. The objective is that over a period of time all of TCDC district will be metered and usage will be recorded using smart meter technology.
Currently, about 11,500 properties in the district are metered, and about 9,500 are not.
“The way we set our (water) rates is complex and involves a significant process. The setting of our rates was legally reviewed prior to adoption on 24 June and adheres to all aspects set out under the Local Government (Rating) Act 2002. We don’t expect people to necessarily understand the intricacies of this process …” – TCDC
This editor is stating that as yet, TCDC has acquiesced to what was stated prior to the election.
Ian Stewart directed his recent letter to the Legal Technical Specialist, Thames-Coromandel District Council (name withheld). Here is a portion of that letter:
“Again, you have failed to respond to my question, so now I am invoking this under the Official Information Act. I’m also submitting this to the Mercury Bay Informer to ascertain feedback from other residents in this position
Firstly, I have made you aware that you are massively overcharging us for water used not only in our apartment but in ALL the apartments in the Mercury Bay Apartments complex.
Secondly, the information emailed through is clearly documented as being guidelines only, and DO NOT constitute legislation which allows you the leeway to knowingly overcharge people for water. My question to you was, what Legal precedent does the TCDC have which allows you to knowingly overcharge for water which is not being used.
Thirdly, you stated in your email dated 6 May, 2026 that “For Eyre Street, Council owns and maintains the public water infrastructure up to the boundary meter only. The internal distribution infrastructure within the complex is privately owned. Council is not responsible for installing, maintaining, or upgrading water infrastructure or meters on private property.” However despite us requesting a water meter at the boundary, none has been supplied by the council. It was the council’s initiative, for patently groundless reasons, to install these water meters. However, the TCDC has only installed these in a hap-hazard fashion and then arbitrarily levied charges against those households without a meter, based on a “guideline” which is completely out of touch with reality for almost all of the occupied dwellings in this town.
A. Why, despite our requests, has the council not supplied a water meter to the boundary?
B. The council has ample information available to it comparing the number of residents in a dwelling to water consumption…. The current fixed charge is the equivalent to every non-metered household emptying and refilling a spa pool 365 times per year, and still having water left over for showers etc. It is a totally unrealistic figure.
Why hasn’t the council either:
1. Installed water meters at every property to ensure fair charging for water, or
2. Surveyed the properties without meters and calculated a fair and equitable charge based on known parameters for household water usage.
Please remember also that I’m asking under the OIM what legal precedent you are using to overcharge for water with the full knowledge that you are doing so.
Lastly, you have stated that the TCDC only has a duty of care to bring water to the boundary of the property, yet you are charging each unit individually. As you are treating us as individual consumers and billing us as such, I believe an argument could be made in court that your care of responsibility for accurate billing is also relevant to the original customer, particularly since the TCDC has declined to install a water meter on the boundary of the shared property.
I’m also questioning that particular excuse. I have owned a cross lease section in Auckland. The Auckland City Council had no issues installing individual meters on all properties in the cross lease. Please give me a reason why the TCDC can’t do the same… You are supplying goods to individual dwellings within the property. These dwellings are individual consumers and unique billing entities. So they have a right, and you a legal obligation as a service provider, to supply them with accurate billings for accurate measure of goods and services supplied by the council, rather than a generic overcharge of 925.6 litres per day.”
