At yesterday’s Dunedin City Council meeting, councillors voted to adopt a draft water services delivery plan as part of the central government-led infrastructure reform Local Water Done Well.
Cr Jim O’Malley said he was pleased the plan included ring-fenced finances so the cost of water services would be set apart from residents’ wider rates bills.
"It is often the driver of what is causing rates to change and when you’re trying to do the right thing with water, you can end up being lambasted for doing the wrong thing with rates."
The council could demonstrate Dunedin had one of the lowest — "if not the lowest" — water bills in Otago, he said.
Cr Christine Garey said residents were in for a "heck of a shock" when they saw the cost of water services.
"We can’t say, ‘oh, we need the infrastructure’, and then say we’ve got too much debt and we can’t afford to do this — we are required to do this," she said.
Cr Brent Weatherall said, for too long councils nationwide had borrowed rather than pass on the "true cost" of delivering water services.
"Our city’s debt has continued to rise at an alarming rate," he said.
"Yet, thankfully, it’s enabled our water department to take a proactive approach to bringing our water services up to standard for the envy of many of our neighbouring councils."
The government’s legislation would address the "true cost of supply", he said.
In their report to council, Three Waters and transition general manager David Ward and chief financial officer Carolyn Allan said increasing water service-targeted rates by 15% annually for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 years would contribute towards the requirement to fully fund water services.
The council was also required to identify a proposed model for the delivery of water services and, in May, voted to back an in-house model.
The council signed a memorandum of understanding with the Christchurch City Council in February to consider sharing a "wide range of functions or services", including procurement, infrastructure planning and delivery and monitoring.
Mr Ward said communication between the two councils would "gain momentum" once both their water services delivery plans were signed off.
Councillors voted 14-1 to adopt the plan, Cr Lee Vandervis voting against.
