Media release – Grassroots Action Network Tasmania (GRANT), 28 August 2024
ACTIVISTS HANG BANNERS OFF HOBART’S ABANDONED CONSERVATORIUM, CALL OUT GOVERNMENT’S UNINTEREST IN HOUSING PROBLEMS
Members of Grassroots Action Network Tasmania (GRANT) have this morning scaled the outside of nipaluna/Hobart’s now-derelict Conservatorium of Music on Sandy Bay Road, attaching banners to the building’s eaves reading “EMPTY BUILDINGS CREATE EMPTY COMMUNITIES”.
The Conservatorium was bought from UTAS by property developers Fragrance Group in 2017, and despite the Hobart City Council approving housing development plans on the site, the building remains empty and dilapidated. The banners, visible from blocks away, call morning commuters’ attention to the fact that buildings all over lutruwita/Tasmania sit empty while investors make millions off their market value. The Tasmanian government, say the activists, could solve these problems, but would rather attract corporations to exploit their island’s housing market.
Tasmanians have been dealing with housing crises for generations. Some of us have never known what it feels like to have a stable and safe place to call home. Many of us brace ourselves each year for winter, living in poorly maintained homes not built to handle the Tasmanian climate. Renters have few rights, and people in housing stress often have nowhere else to go. There’s not enough money to pay the rent, there aren’t enough homes to bring down prices, and there aren’t enough support services if you find yourself unable to cope. None of this is new, and for the last decade this has been the focus of lots of discussion, but very little action. As the people affected by the housing crisis, we are taking action to change it,
“It’s maddening that during this period where everything feels lacking, there is an abundance of empty buildings across the city,” said Fergus, a spokesperson for GRANT. “I am not just talking about empty homes, of which research by the Tenant’s Union of Tasmania has shown there are upwards of 2000 across the state. I’m talking about large buildings, centrally located, ideal sites for building the kind of mid-rise apartment developments that could have a real material impact on the lives of people struggling during this housing crisis.”
Tasmanians are familiar with some of these empty buildings. They sit empty, slowly deteriorating under graffiti and vandalism, occasionally used as shelter by those without anywhere else to go. The former Conservatorium of Music is a prime example. Sold in 2017 to the Fragrance Group, it remains empty today. Once a place full of students, music, and life it is now dilapidated and crumbling. Like many of the empty buildings around the city, the former Conservatorium was slated for a housing project. And yet years after approval was issued by the council, it sits there empty while people sleep rough during winter and rents continue to rise.
“It doesn’t need to be this way,” said Fergus. “Rather than wait for private developers to make their minds up, the government ought to step in, purchase these buildings, and turn them into public housing. There’s strong precedent for this, with the government already purchasing both the Waratah Hotel and Fountainside for supported accommodation and worker housing. Given the crisis we’re in, this is just common sense.”
The situation is made more sickening by the fact that so many facing housing insecurity are sleeping rough within a stone’s throw of the abandoned Conservatorium. Council workers have multiple times in the last twelve months evicted houseless people from underneath trees in St David’s Park, less than fifty metres from the Conservatorium. In the last week head-height temporary fencing was erected around a previous campsite to stop those who need the space from returning.
Empty buildings create empty communities. These buildings could be homes to people who need them. We could create warm, cosy, affordable apartments near the places that people need to be. Ground floors could be turned into businesses that employ the community, be the sites of much needed childcare centers, small local libraries, meeting spaces, venues for art and music. Rather than empty spaces, they could be places of life. This isn’t some utopian daydream. It’s simply common sense, and it’s what governments ought to be doing.
