IAWAI: Partnerships key to solving ‘very significant challenges’

Saturday, 28 March 2026

‘We will not be able to afford by ourselves to service all of the fast-track and other things that are in the pipeline,’ IAWAI chief executive Peter Winder told developers.

The “brutal reality” of the current housing push is that Hamilton’s new water authority can’t fund everything on its own.

IAWAI is preparing to take over regional water services on July 1, and leaders met with developers in Hamilton on Friday.

A $3.3 billion investment in water infrastructure is planned over the next decade, IAWAI chief executive Peter Winder said, but the company is caught in a crunch point.

The Government is pushing to reduce the cost of housing by getting more land zoned and developed, but the constrained water network will need investment to allow that to happen.

“The brutal reality [is] that we will not be able to afford by ourselves to service all of the fast-track and other things that are in the pipeline. So navigating our way through that is going to be complicated,” Winder told attendees at a Hamilton City Council stakeholders and developers forum.

“We have a very large capital programme to deliver. We can only deliver that in partnership and we're looking for opportunities outside conventional delivery partners.’’

IAWAI chief executive Peter Winder, IWAI chief of strategy Andrew Parsons and HCC commercial and analytics unit director Greg Carstens at a HCC Stakeholders and Developers Forum

This would protect IAWAI - and its customers - from taking on the full risk of providing additional capacity, which he described as “a real challenge for us’’.

On July 1, IAWAI will become the nation’s first government-mandated water service entity, in charge of drinking and wastewater for the Hamilton City and Waikato District areas, with an active Water Services Strategy in place.

On Friday, chief executive Peter Winder told attendees at a Hamilton City Council stakeholders and developers forum there were still “hugely important’’ issues not in this year’s WSS that are still to be addressed next year in a second WSS iteration.

One is how to charge major commercial users of water and wastewater.

“We're really keen for your feedback on this. We do not want to create unanticipated consequences.’’

Winder also outlined the organisation's plans to invest $3.3 billion in water infrastructure over 10 years, address development constraints, and implement new growth charges for developers, emphasising the need for commercial partnerships and commercial opportunities “where it makes sense’’.

He was clear that any new developments on greenfield sites or projects going through the Government’s fast-track process would have to pay their own way.

He also pointed out that granny flats wanting water connections would still need connection permission from the councils in question and would be treated as a half house for IAWAI charges.

Those issues highlighted the complexities of managing urban growth, infrastructure investment, and the financial challenges facing developers and local government.

Former Hamilton mayor Margaret Evans asked about making sure there would be ‘effective economically efficient spending’.

“There's quite a lot of catch-up that is reflected in the capital works programme that we now need to do,’’ Winder said.

“There is consented development capacity all over the place, which is not matched in the capacity of the water or wastewater systems. That needs to be addressed in terms of the fundamentals that sit behind it.”

During a wide-ranging Q&A session, former Hamilton Mayor Margaret Evans questioned what optimism developers could have that IAWAI would take an innovative approach “to a lot of these very old and dated’’ problems and “ensure that it's not boys in their big toys any more, but effective economically efficient spending”.

Winder was frank in reply.

“We make absolutely no apologies for this being substantially a continuation of what has been done before because we did not have time or resources to start from square one with a blank sheet of paper and think about life.”

There was a lot of work to be done by next year on the next water services strategy, he said, and maximising existing infrastructure would be critical for being cost effective.

In Hamilton, there would be “a dramatic impact on water and wastewater” from the introduction of universal water meters and a move to volumetric charging.

“The board is expecting to make that decision later this year once we have completed the trial and worked our way through a business case.”

Water meters could make a profound difference, he said, with many other parts of the country finding the demand for potable water dropped by about 25%.

“There is no other single thing that we could do that would have that sort of impact on the demand for water,” he said.

“We've done what we can with what we have in the time that is available.’’