Talking Point: UTAS move to city must be debated

JOHN LIVERMORE: many reasons for university’s shift to CBD do not stack up.

Vice-Chancellor Rufus Black gave detailed reasons for the relocation of the University of Tasmania to Hobart’s central business district in an address to the UTAS Alumni annual general meeting in December.

He cited the need for community engagement and the advantages a centralised institution provided for students travelling from outside Hobart.

He referred to challenges the university faced with lower intakes from Tasmanian students with the decline in number of the 18-plus age group, together with the challenges of online learning.

I attempted at the meeting to move a motion to discuss this proposal but was ignored and the subsequent minutes of the AGM made no mention of the motion.

The Vice-Chancellor has stressed that the buildings on the Sandy Bay campus were in general due for replacement. He had earlier noted (Mercury, April 5) that two-thirds of those were needing replacement and only one out of the 67 buildings were less than 10 years old.

In this report presented to the University Council it was stated that a move to the CBD would cost $445 million and save the university $125 million as against $570 million in retaining the existing campus. This report has never been made public and no accounting and financial data has been given for the estimates of renovating the existing buildings.

At the back of Churchill Avenue are over 100ha of land, so the cost of renovation might be met by its sale or lease. Hill Street Grocer already occupy the old Uniprint site.

The Vice Chancellor has claimed that the move to the CBD would allow an extra 9 per cent of students living across New Norfolk, Brighton/Bridgewater and Midway Point access to a CBD based university. This assumption is based on the expectation that transport planning will respond for Hobart to solve our current problems.

An increase in 10,000 international students by 2022 would provide traffic congestion problems to challenge the uni’s sustainable transport section.

Transport economist Bob Cotgrove noted (Mercury, April 7) daily traffic patterns of staff and students from Dynnyrne, Mount Nelson, Sandy Bay and Taroona would significantly increase traffic flows along Regent St and Sandy Bay and Taroona which are already congested by heavy traffic on Macquarie and Davey streets.

Moving existing university departments to areas of the CBD, apart from the cost and impact involved, breaks up the interaction between staff and students. The social focus of Lazenbv’s and the staff club, the open spaces would be lost. The conservatorium, the media centre and marine and Antarctic studies are all central. However, relative to uni campuses elsewhere in Australia, all these establishments are close to the Sandy Bay campus.

The university started the discussion and now all aspects of the move by UTAS to the CBD need to have plenty of vigorous public debate.

John Livermore is former dean of the Faculty of Economics and Commerce at UTAS. These are his personal opinions.

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