Water Meters and Empty House Statistics

At the New Zealand Planning Institute conference – held in Wellington earlier in April – I was advised by a representative from PIA (Planning Institute of Australia) and a senior planner in New South Wales State Govt, of their data collection policies and systems which help inform the development of housing and urban planning policies.

Data sets relating to metered electricity usage and metered water usage are routinely used to provide statistics relating to unoccupied homes for example. Interesting. Especially if a statistic of of interest is the number of homes in Auckland that are empty, whether that number has increased significantly in the last few years, whether there is any truth in the story that more and more homes are being land-banked and left unoccupied because the main objective in holding the property is capital gain and that rental revenues are foregone and attendant tenancy issues thereby avoided.

Relevant data might be interesting.

Most residential properties in Auckland have water meters, and these meters are routinely read by Watercare staff or agents in order to issue invoices to households relating to volumetric water consumption. Low to zero water use is an indicator of low to zero occupancy of a home (I understand there may be small leaks, or perhaps that timed irrigation systems may still be consuming water).

I'm of the view that relevant data should be available from Watercare. I have asked Watercare for suggestions as to what would be the most meaningful measure of the proportion of Auckland homes, by suburb, over time, that are empty (ie that are consuming little to no water from town supply).

I have asked Watercare:

....please provide a spreadsheet, columns by calendar months for the past 5 years, rows by Auckland suburb, cells containing for the suburb and month the percentage of cumulative actual home meter readings for the 3 months up to and including that month amounting to less than 25 litres/day.

Watercare has responded, helpfully I think, as follows....:

Thank you for your request for information about the number properties within Auckland that are connected to our networks but are using low to zero water.

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide this information due to a number of reasons:

•        Billing system constraints: our billing system is designed to enable monthly billing and has the ability to identify high/low water use as a percentage of normal historical usage for customers. This enables us to alert customers to potential leaks as well as to identify meter issues, water theft, network leaks, etc. Our aim is to identify possible customer impacts or revenue loss. There is no specific focus on identifying low or zero water use.
 •        Shared water meters: there are a number of properties in Auckland that have shared water meters. However, we do not know how many. For example, a small block of units or flats may share one meter.  Similarly, a large residential/commercial apartment block may share one meter and as they have mixed use are classed as a non-domestic customer. This is also true of retirement villages, which have mixed use, but only one meter feeding the whole site.

•        Multiple water meters: there are a number of properties which have multiple meters for various reasons such future development, irrigation and fire sprinkler supply.
 •       Vacant lots: A number of sites across the city have either vacant land or are under construction. Many of these sites have meters installed, with varying volumes of usage depending on the stage or development.

I think Watercare is assisting by suggesting that the request for information be made more specific. 

I would appreciate any suggestions from readers.