City’s water meter waiting game
Working out what to do with Hamilton’s water – and telling everyone about it – could cost ratepayers $1.5 million.
Councillors on Tuesday voted to put the money in their draft budget for the next decade, during a meeting in which they also tried to trim proposed rate rises.
However, they ruled out setting aside $53m for water meters for now, with one councillor saying it’d be putting the cart before the horse.
Deputy mayor Angela O’Leary said the council’s intent was to look at a range of options for water.
Staff would also be asked to work on Hamilton’s response to Local Water Done Well, National’s alternative to Three Waters, to separate out the cost, and to create a communications plan so Hamiltonians knew what was happening.
The intent was not to simply have the council decide what it would do with the water, but instead to take in the public’s views, she said.
“This will be the most significant level of service change in the history of the city.”
Not keeping people informed had been a problem in the past, she said.
“It is a lack of comms that has contributed to some of the angst that’s out there, and I am not going through what I have personally gone through with transport [again].”
Councillors Mark Donovan and Ewan Wilson, who previously said looking at water without addressing meters was creating a false economy, proposed adding funding for universal water metering into the draft Long Term Plan.
However, that was voted down by all but four councillors: Donovan, Wilson, Louise Hutt, and Moko Tauariki.
O’Leary, who had supported installing meters, said at the meeting that talking about water metering now was like having the cart before the horse, and cited public outrage when the council budgeted for demolishing Founders before a decision was even made. “Now we’re putting in $53m in the budget before we’ve made a decision.”
Councillors unanimously passed the $1.5m to study options for the city to better manage its water.