Small homes subsidise large homes for water connections
Auckland’s housing stock has flipped since 2013. Standalone homes on their own section used to make up about 70 per cent of new supply. Now around 70 per cent of new homes are small attached or terrace homes.
Watercare charges every home the same flat $30,000 to connect to the water network, based on an assumed 200 kilolitres of water use a year. Meter data from hundreds of small homes shows they actually use 80 to 100 kilolitres, less than half that assumption.
For a small home costing around $175,000 to build, that $30,000 charge is 17 per cent of the build cost. For a larger house, the same flat charge works out at closer to 5 per cent.
