We’re planning to invest around $500 million in wastewater infrastructure for the Hibiscus Coast including a major upgrade to the Army Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant. The map shows the projects planned to increase long-term capacity.

We are closely managing new connections to the wastewater network to monitor out-of-sequence growth and ensure capacity is maintained until the Army Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant upgrade and the North Harbour 2 transmission watermain is completed, so that we continue to deliver safe and reliable services.

In November 2024, we estimated the Army Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant had capacity to connect up to another 4000 homes. At May 2026, just over 1300 of those connections had been used. [

What does this mean for property developers?

• Anyone with a valid building consent will be able to connect when they’re ready.

• If you have a resource consent issued before 15 November 2024, but don’t have a building consent, please get in touch with us to understand the remaining capacity. We assess applications to connect on a case-by-case basis as we keep a close eye on the treatment plant’s capacity.

• New resource consents are not currently being granted for this area if a connection to the public wastewater network is required.

• An upgrade to the Army Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant is scheduled for completion in 2031 and several initiatives are underway that we hope will enable us to release capacity earlier. This includes delivering a UV disinfection upgrade early to increase compliance and reduce the amount of work to be done as part of the main upgrade. We will also deploy new treatment technology to our existing processes, which has potential to increase processing capacity at the plant earlier.

• Use the capacity tool to understand any effects on your project.