The $2 billion expansion is outlined in the university’s 2020 Masterplan,
designed to relieve a campus already groaning after an almost 30 per cent
increase in student numbers since 1990 – and growing.
“We’re pretty much bursting at the seams,” said Bob Kotic, the university’s
chief operating officer.
“So we do need to [expand] in terms of quality for staff and students. That’s
why North Eveleigh and Harold Park are so critical for us.”
The draft masterplan, which has been circulated to staff for feedback,
proposes to demolish and rebuild the entire Darlington precinct and acquire
North Eveleigh, Harold Park and Callan Park to create a “university arc” on the
city’s western fringe.
North Eveleigh would be divided into commercial, cultural and residential
precincts, including sporting fields accommodation for 1200 people, which would
be a “softer option” for the site than a commercial project, Mr Kotic
said.
“We feel building from three to five storeys is really what’s appropriate …
otherwise you look like the UTS tower and it’s just not
appealing.”
The Redfern-Waterloo Authority plans to sell the 11-hectare former railway
site at North Eveleigh in the next year and has received the university’s plans
but there have been no formal discussions.
Universities have increased their student populations by almost a third over
the past decade, partly through a boost in the number of international students
they have been forced to recruit to maintain their incomes as federal government
funding has slipped.
The University of Sydney, which expects to have the equivalent of 40,000
full-time students by 2020, has roughly doubled its proportion of international
students to just under 20 per cent over the last 15 years.
The University of NSW is getting rid of surface car parks to make way for
$130 million worth of developments for its Campus 2020 plan including a cancer
research centre and accommodation for more than 1300 students.
The space-strapped University of Technology, Sydney, wants to expand its
footprint in the city by moving into some of the buildings it already owns and
turning them over to university business.
It wants to move into the Dairy Farmers building in Haymarket that it
currently leases to EnergyAustralia, turn its car park building on Broadway into
classrooms and research space, and build additional stories on its Harris Street
buildings.
In the ultimate gesture of thriftiness, it is considering turning its roof
space into sports areas.
But it does not plan to acquire more land, said Patrick Woods, the deputy
vice-chancellor for resources.
“We’re aware that the land that we do own, once we’ve built it out, should
give us what we need,” Mr Woods said.
“UTS is not planning a substantial growth of its student body. Our plan is to
be a medium-sized, high quality university, not a large broadly based liberal
arts university.”
This week the NSW Department of Planning approved the university’s
application to rezone the land on its Kuring-gai campus so it does not have to
be used exclusively for education purposes and can be developed or
sold.
Map: www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/06/22/syduni_map_wideweb__470x397,2.jpg
Source: www.smh.com.au/news/national/schools-out–to-take-over-half-the-city/2008/06/22/1214073053671.html