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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 21, No. 5. May 6, 1958

"The Hucksters and the University"

"The Hucksters and the University"

The writer of this article is Warwick Armstrong, Editor of Craccum 1956-1957, and formerly Secretary of the New Zealand University Student Press Council.

The future site of the University of Auckland hangs in the balance pending the new Government's decision as to the amount of finance that can be made available for its development. If the £3.1 million required for the University Council's choice of Hobson Bay cannot be raised, the University faces another period of postponement and deadlock, for expansion on the Present Princes Street site now involves the use of the Public Works Act in the face of violent Auckland City Council opposition.

Any further delay in the execution of the University's building programme will prove fatal for it will be impossible to retain a highly qualified staff with the conditions under which they are now forced to work, and it will be equally impossible to accommodate the students entitled to admission. Wholesale exclusion will be the only alternative.

Building photograph

Since the war the University has had the greatest difficulty in providing adequate space for the housing of its students. The number attending lectures has at no time fallen far short of 3000 and this year totalled 3100; 2900 students seek higher education at the University crammed into the 4¾-acre Princes St. site; 74,700 square feet of floor space is available in three permanent buildings and 120,000 square feet in temporary converted army huts. Three neighbouring two-storey residences (that were formerly boarding houses) have been converted to accommodate the Law, Economcs, Anthropology and Psychology departments. The Engineering School, located 25 miles south at Ardmore, accommodates 150 students in similar makeshift shacks, while the Elam School of Fine Arts occupies the 85-year-old, former Newton West primary school, four miles from the city.

Conditions for research work in the Science Faculty are appalling and lack of space forces many experiments to be conducted in the corridors. Large arts classes, such as English with a Stage I roll in excess of 300, cram seven to a bench and the overflow sit in the aisles.

As long ago as 1937 it had become apparent that the existing site was quite inadequate for the future development of the University, but efforts to find elbow-room in the Princess Street neighbourhood were unsuccessful. The government of that time refused to cede Government House and its grounds on the northern boundary, and the City Council declined to make any land available to the south. In 1944 the University acquired an area of 120 acres at Tamaki—approximately 20 minutes by car from the city, and this was accepted as the future site of the University. But in June, 1955, Sir James Fletcher, representing the Fletcher Construction Company, placed before the University Council a proposal for the reclamation of 340 acres in Hobson Bay, 240 of which could be made available for University development if the remaining 100 acres were set aside for an hotel (15 acres) and multi-storey dwellings (85 acres), the ground rents from which would, within a reasonable period, reimburse the Government for its initial outlay and provide a permanent and substantial source of income to the Harbour Board.

Hobson Bay, surrounded by the residential suburbs of Parnell, Remuera, and Orakei, offered the prospect of a complete new University two miles from Queen Street, and it was this central location that moved the University Council to adopt it in favour of Tamaki. The proposal was carefully studied by a special Government inter-Departmental committee, and in June, 1956, the Hon. the Minister of Education, Mr. Algie, informed the University Council that the scheme was financially impracticable.

On the other hand, the Government was willing to secure for the University Government House and its grounds, together with all the land bounded by Princes St., Wellesley St. East, Wynyard St., the proposed new motorway, Waterloo Quadrant and Allen Rd. A section behind St. Paul's Church, making a total of 32 acres in all, was also included. £750,000 was authorised for the erection of a Physics and Chemistry block within six years.

This offer the University Council accepted and prepared a Site-Plan which was approved. The Ministry of Works required the City Council to zone the proposed area as a University site under the Town Planning Act 1953, and the University Council followed suit.

The decision to remain in Princes St. produced a sharp cleavage in public opinion, stimulated by the two daily newspapers taking opposing editorial views, and the prominent publicity given to bitter clashes between representatives of the University and City Council. General public opinion was divided as to the form the new university should take. Some favoured a centrally placed "city" University to cater for the 65% part-time roll, with playing fields at a distance, thereby identifying themselves with Princes St. The Hobson Bay supporters favoured the "campus" type University with extensive adjacent playing fields. A poll taken among students at the height of the controversy revealed 60% in favour of Hobson Bay.

But among the local bodies and other interests with direct concern in the future of the University, difference of opinion was based on petty political and financial grounds. The Auckland City Council opposed any expansion in the Princes St. area because of the loss to the city of rates, rents and property which contributed a revenue of £11,794 in 1956-57 — small in comparison to the £350,000 contributed annually by the taxpayer for the upkeep of the University. The threat to Government House brought a sudden historical sentiment for this almost forgotten 102-year-old borer-ridden structure, that had been used in recent years only for the annual Debutante Ball.

In February, 1958, Sir James Fletcher personally conducted Sir Sydney Holland, then Prime Minister, over the Hobson Bay site and offered an alternative scheme reclaiming only 95 acres, that his organisation had drawn up. The Auckland Harbour Board, as owners of the seabed had a close interest in the reclamation of the Bay, and the consequent rent revenue it would contribute.

Matters came to a head on 23rd May, 1957, when a conference was held between representatives of the Government, University, City Council, Harbour Board and Hospital Board, to discuss the proposed Princes St. expansion. Voting power of the various delegations had been decided by the convenors of the meeting, the Prime Minister and the Mayor of Auckland, and the fact that the City Council had seven votes to the University Council's four, turned the conference into a farce with a foregone conclusion.

The City Council's veto of expansion on the Princes Street site forced the Government and the University to seek alternative sites. Ministry of Works engineers prepared an accurate survey of the cost of reclaiming Hobson Bay, and this report published on March 11, 1958, gave the cost of reclaiming 229 acres as £3.1 million; or alternatively development of 82 to 147 acres at a cost of £980,000 to £1,760,000. This was merely the cost of reclamation without a penny having been spent on planning and construction of University buildings on ground that requires piles 25 feet in depth as an initial foundation.

On April 1st, the University Council reaffirmed its choice of Hobson Bay as the future site and asked the Government to develop the full 299 acres. It emphasised once again, as it has never failed to do, the necessity of avoiding fragmentation. If and when the University moves, it must do so at least by whole Faculties. It would be useless to move the Physics Department to Hobson Bay while the Mathematics Department remained in Princes St., and so on. But this involves the planning and erection of a whole series of Departmental buildings simultaneously, not just one by one as would be possible on the present site.

Irrespective of the site finally adopted, at least seven years will elapse before the first permanent buildings are ready, and temporary accommodation must be provided to solve the immediate problem of overcrowding. A two-storey "temporary-permanent" wooden building to house the Geography and Geology Departments, due for completion next year, is about to commence construction on the last remaining free space — the cricket pitch and custodian's garden. Other old boarding houses are being acquired for conversion to lecture rooms.

The future site of the University is by no means settled. In view of the country's bad economic situation it seems extremely unlikely that the Government can afford the fabulous cost of reclamation and a complete new University at Hobson Bay. No one can deny that this site would be the ideal, but the expense and the need for immediate construction of new buildings without Departmental fragmentation, are the limiting factors. The only logical alternative is to take the Princes St. area under the Public Works Act and face another local body outcry, for there is little hope that the present City Council will withdraw its objections to expansion on the site which has long been regarded as the finest in the city for a University. There is a third alternative, and the most dangerous—the shadow of indefinite post ponement.

Meanwhile, in Hamilton, an enthusiastic committee is pressing for the establishment of a University in the Waikato and has already investigated a 200-acre site near Ruakura. Such a location would enable the construction of a "campus" university that would relieve pressure on Auckland for several decades.

The tragic delay caused by the site controversy was one that should never have arisen. The University Council, in consultation with the Government as the financiers, are the only authorities qualified to select the most suitable site for higher education, but unfortunately their freedom of decision has been transgressed and influenced by local petty politics and private vested interests.