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Christchurch City Council's chief financial officer has defended the excess water use charging system, after public concerns about it being inequitable.
The council introduced an excess water charge in October 2022, for households using more than the daily limit of 700 litres a day.
Residential property owners pay a fixed rate of $1.35 for every 1000 litres they use over the daily limit.
There had been concerns about households with shared water meters being exempt from the charges.
Council chief financial officer Leah Scales said for the first billing period, there were only 194 properties with shared water meters out of the total of 25,365 that would be eligible to receive an invoice for high water use - which was less than 1 percent.
Those 194 properties would be the first ones they would start looking at putting in meters, she said.
The council said since the charges were introduced it saw water use decrease by more than 10 percent-, which was saving millions of litres.
For the first billing period October 2022 to January 2023, around 4000 bills were sent out, with the average cost being $78.97.
Water charges were a hotly debated topic by councillors at the Christchurch City Council's meeting to finalise the draft budget for the 2023/24 year.
A proposition to increase the daily allowance for excess water charging from 700 to 900 litres for residents was voted through to go to public consultation, as part of the draft annual plan.
This story was amended on 1 March to reflect the number of bills was actually 4000, not 20,000 as originally reported.