Author lashes UTAS move

UTAS must show benefits of CBD relocation, says Flanagan

ACCLAIMED Tasmanian author Richard Flanagan says the people of Hobart should fight plans by the University of Tasmania to move into the CBD.

Writing in today’s Mercury, Flanagan, below, says people should resist the university’s recently announced plans for a $600 million move. He says the city should “not permit a single new UTAS building to go up … until there is solid proof that each building will be to the benefit and not detriment of Hobartians’ daily lives”. He questions why the university has been notably silent about weighty opposition to the move.

MAN Booker winner Richard Flanagan says Hobartians should not allow the University of Tasmania to move from Sandy Bay into the CBD until the institution can prove it will improve the city and the lives of its residents.

The university announced earlier this month it would develop a city-centric campus within 10 to 15 years.

UTAS chancellor Michael Field promised the institution would “consult carefully” before developing the campus, which will run from the university’s original home at the Domain along Melville St and cost about $600 million.

The university has said it would have cost $575 million to redesign and rebuild the existing Sandy Bay facilities — two-thirds of which it said needed replacing.

In a Talking Point in today’s Mercury, Flanagan, an acclaimed Tasmanian author, said the move made little sense, raised unanswered questions and “threatens to damage both Hobart and the university”.

The capital was already struggling due to a lack of vision and leadership, he said.

“This massive move will see a major, long-term increase in congestion and homelessness in a city where rents are now higher than those of Melbourne’s and traffic some of the worst in the country,” he said.

“Why in its messaging has UTAS been notably silent about the considerable opposition to the move? Why has it not mentioned the many Hobartians who have opposed the move?”

Justifications for the move were “palpable nonsense”, according to Flanagan.

“The argument that moving into the city is a worldwide trend seems to have little foundation in reality,” he said.

“Nor do UTAS’s protestations that retro-fitting the old buildings on the Sandy Bay site is impossible and unaffordable, a claim every senior architect I know in Hobart rejects as unfounded.”

He said people living in Hobart should “not permit a single new UTAS building to go up … until there is solid proof that each building will be to the benefit and not detriment of Hobartians’ daily lives and the amenity of the city”.

UTAS has pledged to pay general rates on existing and future inner-city buildings for the next decade.

Hobart Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds has said the council would work with UTAS “to meet the future requirements of the city”.