112Development contributions principles

1. This section applies to a water organisation performing functions and duties under this subpart when—

2. requiring a development contribution under section 113; or
3. preparing a development contributions policy for adoption under section 119; or
4. providing information to a territorial authority under section 128(4).

5. The water organisation must take the following principles into account:

6. development contributions must only be required if the effects or cumulative effects of developments have created or will create a requirement for the water organisation to have provided or to provide any of the following water services infrastructure assets for the purpose of providing water services:
   1. new assets:
   2. additional assets:
   3. assets of increased capacity:
7. development contributions must be determined in a way that—
   1. is generally consistent with the capacity life of the water services infrastructure assets for which they are intended to be used; and
   2. avoids over-recovery of costs allocated to development contributions funding:
8. cost allocations used to establish development contributions must be determined in a manner that the water organisation considers appropriate after considering—
   1. the persons who will benefit from the water services infrastructure assets to be provided (including the community as a whole); and
   2. the persons who create the need for those assets:
9. development contributions must be used—
   1. for or towards the purpose of the group of water services activities for which the contributions were required; and
   2. for the benefit of the service area or the part of the service area that is identified in the development contributions policy and for which the development contributions were required:
10. a water organisation must make sufficient information available to demonstrate—
    1. what it is using development contributions for; and
    2. why it is using them for those purposes:
11. development contributions must be—
    1. predictable; and
    2. consistent with—
       1. the methodology and schedules in the water organisation’s development contributions policy under sections 123 to 126; or
       2. if a territorial authority’s development contributions policy has been extended to the water organisation under section 128, the methodology and schedules of that policy:
12. when calculating and requiring a development contribution, water organisations may group together certain developments by geographic area or categories of land use, but must ensure that—
    1. the grouping is done in a manner that balances practical and administrative efficiencies with considerations of fairness and equity; and
    2. grouping by geographic area avoids grouping across an entire service area wherever practical.

13. Despite anything to the contrary, in subsection (2), assets includes water services infrastructure and related assets transferred to the water organisation by a territorial authority.