Tiaki Wai is the public water organisation that manages drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater services for the Wellington region, including Lower Hutt.
It is owned by Greater Wellington and the four metro Wellington councils. It launched on 1 July 2026 and replaces Wellington Water.
Contact Tiaki Wai about resource consent and development matters at land.development@tiakiwai.co.nz.
Resource consent and pre-application processes
See below for a breakdown of how to engage with Tiaki Wai, and when this may be required during the resource consent process.
1. Resource consent pre-application advice
Applications for pre-application advice should be submitted via Council's online application portal here. At this landing page you can decide whether you want to apply for complete pre-application advice (including planning, Tiaki Wai, and other expert inputs such as urban design, transport etc.), or whether you want to apply for Tiaki Wai advice only (floor levels, three waters servicing capacity). Council will then internally manage the referral process to Tiaki Wai where three-waters related advice is required. You will not need to contact them separately.
Alternatively, you can contact Tiaki Wai directly for pre-application advice on floor levels and three waters servicing capacity via land.development@tiakiwai.co.nz.
Please note that Council is not responsible for any delays in receiving pre-application advice from Tiaki Wai, and does not have oversight over the progress nor likely timeframes for these.
2. Resource consent applications
Applications should be submitted via Council's online Jotform application here. Council will then internally manage the referral process to Tiaki Wai where a three-waters related assessment is required. You will not need to contact them separately. Tiaki Wai will be responsible for assessing consent applications where servicing is proposed, and/or a site is affected by flooding (inundation, overland flow path, stream corridor).
Tiaki Way may require further information or request the imposition of consent conditions. Council will coordinate these information requests and/or conditions requests. The HCC processing planner will be your core contact throughout the resource consent process.
Tiaki Wai will use HCC’s existing standard consent conditions for a time, but these will eventually develop to feature more standardised Tiaki Wai conditions across the whole region. This may involve the imposition of further consent conditions or notes relating to three waters assets, imposed by Tiaki Wai as the infrastructure asset owner.
3. Engineering approval
Council has created a new online lodgement portal for engineering approval applications. This link can be found here.
When you make an application for engineering approval, you will be required to populate the form via the link above with resource consent information, invoicing details, and plans for assessment. Upon receipt, you will be contacted by subdivision@huttcity.govt.nz.
As above, Council will coordinate any required assessment of three waters with Tiaki Wai. You do not need to contact them separately. Any further information requirements will be communicated to you via subdivision@huttcity.govt.nz or threewaters.consents@huttcity.govt.nz.
When your EAP is approved, you will be notified and sent an approval letter and approved plans (three waters plans stamped by Tiaki Wai, and others stamped by HCC) from subdivision@huttcity.govt.nz.
An invoice for the engineering approval will be issued subsequently.
4. Booking inspections
Council will manage inspections for non-three waters infrastructure (including pre-site meeting, beam test, vehicle crossings, lighting, etc). Council has a new lodgement portal for booking inspections.
Tiaki Wai will manage three-waters related inspections. Please contact them separately to arrange these via connections@tiakiwai.co.nz.
5. Subdivision certification s223/224c
Applications should be submitted via Council's online Jotform application here. Council will then internally manage the referral process to Tiaki Wai where a three-waters related conditions assessment is required. You will not need to contact them separately.
Any further information requirements will be communicated to you via subdivision@huttcity.govt.nz or threewaters.consents@huttcity.govt.nz.
When your s223/224c is approved, you will be notified by Council's planning team as per normal. Payment of all outstanding fees, development and reserves contributions will be required prior to title certification.
Fees and charges
Tiaki Wai does not yet have the ability to invoice for its time. As such, for an interim period, Council will be invoicing any charges incurred by Tiaki Wai on their behalf for its involvement in assessing all resource consent related processes. These will be on-charged to the applicant via Council’s standard end-of-consent invoicing process.
Council will also invoice for all development contributions (including three waters) for an interim period.