Posted May 31: New McMaster residence proposals
A McMaster staff team has been assembled to review and consider several innovative proposals for additional university student residences.
Committee chair Roger Trull, vice-president of University Advancement, acknowledges the value of additional housing to serve McMaster students and potentially ease the impact on the neighbourhoods surrounding the University as our student body continues to grow.
Under Trull's leadership, the committee is currently reviewing a number of residence proposals. One such proposal includes a potential partnership with a private sector developer who has received support from the City of Hamilton to build a residence in the downtown core that would accommodate senior undergraduate and graduate students.
The proposal provides an opportunity to achieve the potential benefits of addressing student housing requirements while supporting the City's downtown redevelopment initiatives as well as the business interests of the developers. But such potential benefits must be balanced with the University's priorities of providing adequate and reasonably priced housing options that meet the needs of our students.
Despite the potential benefits of the downtown residence proposal and recent media reports about the City's approval to provide an interest-free loan to the developers to support the project, the proposal is far from the approval stages at McMaster.
The staff team will continue to review this proposal as well as others, and will work towards developing recommendations to the appropriate internal committees by the fall of this year.
“The committee appreciates the support that the City of Hamilton is providing to the project developers' initiative to partner with McMaster in a unique student housing proposal for the downtown core,” says Trull. “Absolutely no commitment has been made to date to proceed with the proposal, but the committee will give it serious consideration along with the other potential proposals. We'll be requesting the input of various McMaster committees who need the opportunity to review and comment, and then we will aim to present final recommendations to the Board of Governors.”
The staff team dedicated to reviewing the student housing proposals includes the following McMaster representatives: Roger Trull, chair, vice-president, University Advancement; Fred A. Hall, vice-president academic; Andrea Farquhar, director of public and government relations; Pat Harris, student liaison; Cathie Miller, director of housing and conference services; Jennifer Kleven, co-ordinator of off-campus housing; Evan Mackintosh, president, McMaster student union; Shano Mohan, inter-residence council president; Gina Robinson, director of student services, student affairs, Lilian Scime, assistant vice-president, administration; Marc Filion, grad student association; and Linda Axford, University planner.
(End of story)
