U. Senate OK’s Facilities Master Plan

The university's Facilities Master Plan received its final stamp of approval from the University Senate yesterday and will now move on to a Board of Regents vote after months of public forums and multiple drafts.

Facilities Management Director Frank Brewer presented a draft of the plan — a 123-page guide to development on and off the campus for the next decade — to answer any lingering questions and gain the body's endorsement. Although the senate ultimately approved the plan in a 47-7 vote, senators raised a number of concerns, including how projects will be funded in an uncertain economic climate and how it will create a more biker-friendly campus, expand public transportation and find room for new buildings on a campus with limited space.

While Facilities Management officials have focused on funding and building new, state-of-the-art buildings in recent years, Brewer said this plan shifts the department's focus by concentrating on landscape development and transportation. But carrying out the plan's proposals will not be without challenges, Brewer said, as the campus is 1.7 million square feet short of land to place new proposed buildings and the department must grapple with $650 million worth of deferred maintenance problems.

In January, university President Wallace Loh will submit the plan — which cost Facilities Management $600,000 in consulting funds to draft — to the board, a 17-member body that sets university policy.

During yesterday's meeting, about 15 people took more than an hour asking Brewer questions. Behavioral and social sciences Dean John Townshend asked how the plan lines up with the university's goal of expanding research activity through new buildings, many of which will have to be on the campus.

Brewer said it is unclear when many of the department's requested buildings will receive funding from the state, leaving uncertainty about which projects will ever come to fruition.

"The economic situation is having a dampening effect on our ability to build new buildings,"Brewer said.

Many also voiced concerns about creating more convenient biker paths — especially since the university plans to drastically reduce the use of single-occupancy vehicles and encourage people to use modes of public transportation instead.

But Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley, who is overseeing many of the plans for creating a cyclist-friendly campus, attempted to alleviate these concerns.

"The goal is to remove bikes from major pathways with pedestrians and provide thruways for most of the entrances to the campus," he said.

Brewer also discussed building a more efficient public transportation system, considering many future buildings will have to be built in parking lots, resulting in fewer parking spots for students, faculty and staff.

"We're trying to create a transportation network which is so efficient that it will seduce all of you out of your single-occupancy vehicles," he said. "You'll just happily give them up and jump on that public transportation. The land we had here is dwindling, so it's now a very precious resource for us."

Faculty senator Steven Heston, a finance professor, said public transportation isn't realistic for everybody.

"We are a rapidly aging society, and it becomes more difficult to use public transportation," he said. "There's also people who need disability parking, and they can't use the public transportation."

Although the plan's future is uncertain, Brewer assured the body it will have ample opportunity to offer input as it progresses, and every project must go through a rigorous approval process before being implemented.

"The plan is just a guideline; it's not written in stone," Brewer said. "There's a whole set of approval processes you have to go through to get things to happen. There's a variety of mechanisms in place that will allow for changes in the plan to occur as it moves along."

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