Tauranga City Council has confirmed its intention to go ahead with a university in the city, handing over the Durham St parking lot towards the $65 million project.

The move will see the loss of $114,000 in parking revenue annually, from the 127 carparks on the site.

A design drawing of the campus superimposed over the Durham Street car park site where it will be built.

The total land area is 0.371 hectares with a rating value of $3,768,000.

The loss of the parking income sparked comments from the project partners; the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, which has pledged $15 million, and the Tauranga Energy Consumers Trust, which is also putting $15 million towards the project.

The other partners want TCC to increase its contribution, but both of them have pots of money, says Tauranga City councillor Steve Morris, who believes his council would have to tax its ratepayers to top up a contribution.

Tauranga City councillors voted in favour of the project, with the exception of Catherine Stewart who protested the request for more council contributions in view of the ongoing loss of parking income.

Catherine says the project still has a shortfall. 'Maybe their business case isn't quite there yet.”

The business case is confidential and was not discussed in public.

In a prepared report, independent economist Dr Warren Hughes says the proposed city centre campus is expected to generate $55 million annually in regional revenue and more than 270 extra jobs by 2020 – as well as $133 million in annual regional revenue and more than 600 jobs by 2032.

It is also expected to significantly increase the Bay of Plenty Region's GDP by about one per cent by 2032, solely due to higher-paid graduates working in the region.

Today, the median income in Tauranga is five per cent less than the national median. The Bay of Plenty median income is about eight per cent less than the national median.

Relative to the rest of New Zealand, Tauranga has the lowest percentage of young people compared to any of the university towns.

For percentage of population aged 15-19, Tauranga has 6.9 per cent compared with 10.5 per cent in Dunedin, 8.3 per cent at Palmerston North and Hamilton with seven per cent.

In the 20-24 age-group Tauranga is still lowest at 5.2 per cent compared with 10.9 per cent for Dunedin, 9.8 per cent for Palmerston North and 9.2 per cent in Hamilton.

But Tauranga does top out in the percentage stakes of population aged over 65 at 19.3 per cent, compared with 14.9 per cent in Dunedin, 13.3 per cent at Palmerston North, and Hamilton's 11.4 per cent.