But the students who've revelled in the off-campus community for years - many of them undergraduates - have been turfed out, and asked to pay an additional $30 a week in rent.

Next year, that is expected to jump to an extra $60 a week.

"The university, broadly, is becoming a place that is a lot less affordable and accessible. Student accommodation already isn't cheap," third-year law and economics student David Harvey said.

"Sixty dollars is probably my grocery bill each week. It's an extra shift at work and a significant increase [in rent]."

The university's former Fenner Hall building, which is located on Northbourne Avenue in Braddon about two kilometres off-campus, has been reopened as the postgraduate "Gowrie Hall".

It comes nearly three years after the university's chief operating officer, Chris Grange, said Fenner Hall's maintenance costs were too high to make it a viable asset.

"We're up for at least $12 million of relatively priority works over the next two years or so," Mr Grange said.

It is understood the university's vice-chancellor, Brian Schmidt, also told student residents in 2016 that Fenner Hall was not allowed to be kept open due to building codes.

It was the expectation, then, that the building would be sold or demolished after most students were told to move out in December. The university residence is the only one not on campus, and relies on a short-term lease from the Commonwealth government, which owns the land.

"My impression from living there [for two years] was that the building was old and there was a lot of money that needed to be spent on fixing it. A lot of the ovens didn't work," Mr Harvey said.

"Realistically, it wouldn't be used for anything other than student accommodation. It's sort of on its last legs as a building."

Most of Fenner's residents were shocked that they had been told they would need to evacuate the building but postgraduate students had been invited to live there, Mr Harvey said.

The old residents of Northbourne Avenue's Fenner Hall have been relocated to the new Fenner Hall building in the middle of the campus' Kambri precinct.

Students from the old Fenner Hall building, who moved into the new building on Wednesday, will be charged a special "returner's rate" of $260 a week in 2019. This is compared to the $230 they were paying previously.

In 2020, it's expected the returner's rate won't apply to old Fenner residents, and they will be charged $290 a week, Mr Harvey said. He anticipates most people will seek alternative, less-expensive accommodation by then.

"I think the consensus is that people will be looking for share houses at the end of this year. For $300 a week [share housing], you could find a lot more than 10 square metres," Mr Harvey said.

"We're going from being two kilometres away from [the university], to right in the middle of campus. The feeling is that we're losing that independence."

The old Fenner Hall building was scheduled to close at the end of 2018, a spokesperson for the Australian National University said. But the Postgraduate and Research Students' Association lobbied for its consideration as postgraduate accommodation.

The university has an accommodation guarantee for first year undergraduate students but a guarantee for postgraduates is not expected until 2021, when new postgraduate accommodation will be finished.

"ANU recognised that with some renovations, the old Fenner Hall on Northbourne Avenue could be used temporarily as postgraduate accommodation until new dedicated postgraduate accommodation could be built on campus," the university spokesperson said.

The university did not respond to questions about whether any of the necessary $12 million worth of renovations had been completed in the building, or what renovations will be done.

Students began moving in on Wednesday, the university spokesperson said.

It was stated that the building would undergo a "mild makeover" in an initial announcement.

"The extension of the use of the old Fenner Hall (renamed Gowrie Hall) is expected to be two years," the university spokesperson said.

"Gowrie Hall will not be part of the university’s long-term accommodation mix."

It was the understanding of the postgraduate students' association that some work had been done in the building's right wing and further renovations would be completed in the coming months.

"We think it's a really good move for the university to recognise the challenges faced by [postgraduate students]," association president Zyl Hovenga-Wauchope said.

"It's a really great outcome and we were very thankful that the university reconsidered their previous plans to evacuate the building."

While the university has struggled with housing postgraduate students, it was a shame it had to come at the cost of the Fenner community's off-campus culture, Mr Harvey said.

The new name of the building is an apparent reference to its roots as the Gowrie Hostel, which housed single public servants from 1965 until it was acquired by ANU in 1992.

The new Fenner Hall will have its official opening on February 11, along with the opening of the rest of the new Kambri precinct.