The University of Wollongong should remain exempt from paying council rates on its commercial buildings and student accommodation, a senior staff member has told the state’s pricing regulator.
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The university’s strategic projects manager Mark Roberts fronted an Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) inquiry last month, arguing against recommendations which would remove some of the institution’s rate exemptions.
The IPART recommendations are part of a review of the local government rate system which was ordered by Premier Mike Baird last year.
Mr Roberts noted public education facilities were exempted from paying rates under the existing model, as they were considered to have a “public benefit”.
He questioned a proposal from IPART which could make commercial buildings – such as UOW’s new IGA supermarket or the iAccelerate centre at the Innovation Campus – subject to council rates.
“[iAccelerate] is focused on new business start-ups and generating knowledge-base employment in a city where over 30,000 jobs have been lost in traditional industries such as steel and coal since the 1980s,” Mr Roberts told the inquiry.
“UOW contributes significant funding to run the iAccelerate centre and its programs to support development of new businesses for the Illawarra region.”
He said the university believed it would be “a poor outcome” if this building was deemed commercial and the university was forced to pay council rates.
Mr Roberts also said the university did not support IPART’s proposal to remove rate exemptions for student accommodation and argued the campus supported a daily staff and student population that was the same size as “Ulladulla, Griffith or Singleton”
He said the university provided “ancillary services” like kiosks, medical services, retail and restaurants and did not believe these “should be deemed as commercial for rating purposes under the proposed model”.
Further Mr Roberts argued that the university provided a library, recreation and aquatic centre, sports grounds, exhibition spaces and shuttle buses, which were also available for use by the wider community and surrounding neighbourhoods.
“The community usage value of these amounts to several hundreds of millions per year provided by the university,” he said.
“While the proposed measures represent a move to partial rating, focus on deemed commercial activities and student accommodation only, the University of Wollongong believes our operations should be considered in the totality of their public benefit.”