Boscabel Drive residents will be able to drink Tauranga city's water – but it will cost them $11,500 per household.

Tauranga City councillors decided at Wednesday's Annual Plan deliberations to proceed with connecting the Ohauiti subdivision to the city's water supply.

Boscabel homes will be hooked up to the city's water supply.

When the development was first established in the early 1990s the 77 lot subdivision was beyond Tauranga city's water mains, and the developer installed his own water supply network.

It didn't comply with council requirements and doesn't provide a fire fighting supply.

Bringing Boscabel Drive's network up to city standards, so it can connect, is estimated to cost $300,000 – or $11,500 per property up-front – or more if paid over time in a targeted rate.

Residents also face having to upgrade their system to national drinking water standards by 2015 – if it doesn't connect to Tauranga's water supply.

Incapability of Boscabel Drive's orphan system to plug into the city water system arose when the developer didn't build a network to comply with the city's code of practice, and did it on the cheap. Council couldn't force him to build it properly as it was outside of the city's water supply area and a fire district.

A dispute began between Boscabel residents and the council during 1997-2000 when the system's failings became apparent. In 2000, the council agreed to indemnify residents for loss or damage, arising from failure of water-supply piping, within any public road.

Now, councillors have agreed to connect the system to the city's water supply, on a proviso there is no subsidy by Tauranga city ratepayers – but this was accompanied by an ‘I told you so' from councillor Bill Faulkner.

He was on the council 15 years ago when the development, then on a rural Ohauiti avocado orchard, went ahead.

'I would never say ‘I told you so' but I did mention this day would come – and here we are,” said Bill on Wednesday.

'I think there's a lesson here. We have other people currently attempting to go their own way with infrastructure, and we should learn the lesson from this.

'Council has got to be careful that, in future, we don't get stuck with someone else's problem.”

Council will now formally consult with Boscabel residents with a report back to council in August or September. Decisions on when it will take place will be in the next Annual Plan.