There is no problem with TCC (ratepayers) providing the existing Council carpark land at Durham Street, behind the Bongard Centre Polytech for use as a Waikato University Campus facility.
We certainly need this in Tauranga and it should be built to the maximum height permitted and should have 4 levels of carparking underneath the building.
Build boundary to boundary to fully utilise the site available, the only issues are traffic, parking and access.
There need be no concern about recreation areas either, simply put in a roof garden the same as at the Bongard Centre. Only 400m away you have lovely Wharepai Domain with tennis courts, bowling greens and athletic track and the same distance to the main Tauranga library. Use the Bongard Centre and Durham Street for commercial studies and the like, Sulphur Point for marine studies and Windermere Campus for everything else.
The Government must purchase the site and pay TCC the market value plus fund the complete construction and fit-out because people from outside Tauranga will also be using the facility. Tauranga people should not be expected to fund an education facility because nowhere else does. The obligation on TCC will then be to build a large multi-storey carpark at the Hamilton Street site to assist with CBD parking and compensate the loss of The Strand parking, etc. Proceeds from the sale of the Durham Street parking site to the Govt. must be used toward this new carpark.
On this basis, it is a win-win situation solving a few problems relating to vital education and city parking, anything else and it will be the usual pig's breakfast.

S Paterson, Mount Maunganui.