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master plan

While Green Buildings and materials are hot topics in today's magazines and news media, how we plan our campus,develop our land and infrastructure,and where we place our buildings is perhaps of greater importance in our quest for long term sustainability.

A Master Plan

The Campus Planning Office, in conjunction with a consulting team led by Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto, has recently developed the Cornell Master Plan (CMP) for the Ithaca campus - also referred to as the campus master plan.   The master plan addresses physical development over the long term (30-60 years) in a comprehensive manner and integrates land use, landscape, transportation and utilities infrastructure, along with an awareness of the impact and influence of its development in the greater Ithaca region. is currently in the process of developing a Comprehensive Master Plan for Cornell's campus in Ithaca.

The Campus Master Plan provides the university with a clear and integrated framework to guide its physical development over the next 30 - 60 years. Driven by academic planning priorities, the master plan provides a set of principles, essential features, and guidelines for decisions about where to locate the university's research, teaching, residential and recreational priorities and programs; it also offers a campus-wide frame of reference for the university's current capital plan; and links local and precinct plan goals to the broader plan. The master plan creates the big-picture vision for the Ithaca campus and provides enabling strategies to guide its long-term development. It identifies clear directions for its physical evolution and establishes a road map to the future. While the details of the plan's implementation will vary as Cornell's academic, financial and social needs and priorities evolve, its vision, principles and essential features will remain constant. The master planning process has been an inclusive and highly consultative process and has included input from Cornell students, faculty and staff through interviews, meetings and workshops. Neighboring communities have also been engaged early on and throughout the process, with planning workshops and public open houses held at milestones in the process to report progress and gather feedback.

Sustainable Land Use and Development- Good land use planning creates operational efficiencies, savings in resource and energy use over a large area and the long term, lasting aesthetics and a diversity of uses and activities on a campus. To be truly sustainable, land use planning should be responsive to the needs of all members of the Cornell community and set an example for good development practices in the greater Ithaca region.

Transportation- Land use and transportation planning are linked and can substantially affect long-term use of resources across the university and what the campus eventually looks like.

  • Cornell's TDM strategy is one of the most successful in the nation and is emulated by many campuses.
  • The t-GEIS looks at how to bring people, not cars to the campus and studies the mitigation of transportation-related impacts on the neighborhoods surrounding Cornell.
  • The use of alternative modes of commuting such as transit, biking and walking should be encouraged and coordinated with the physical development of the campus.
  • Linking transportation with campus-wide and regional planning can strengthen this strategy and transportation efficiencies.
  • The pedestrian campus integrates landscape with transportation networks.

Infrastructure Planning - Integrating utilities infrastructure into physical planning can enable large scale efficiencies in resource use, and considerable energy and cost savings over the long term in a compact model of development.

Landscape - Cornell's landscape and natural setting are its most memorable characteristics. Landscape needs to be viewed as a campus wide system, not limited areas of green around buildings.

  • Landscape and open spaces at Cornell are a learning environment and complement spaces within buildings.
  • Creating an awareness of natural resources, maximizing protection of and access to Cornell's unique natural features is an important part of planning.

Collaborative Stakeholder Involvement - A collaborative planning process, based upon consensus and addressing the needs of all stakeholders, ensures development that is responsive to the users and to the university as a whole.

  • Understand everyone's impact on the environment and their stake in it while making decisions on individual projects as well as campus-wide planning.
  • A collaborative process encourages shared responsibility for the campus environment.

The Campus Planning Office is also staff to the Campus Planning Committee, a standing committee of the University Assembly.

“The Campus Planning Committee reviews and makes recommendations to the President regarding physical planning for the Ithaca campus including landscape planning and design, circulation and parking, and new construction and renovations as they relate to the overall planning and character of the Ithaca campus. It also reviews (in consultation with the Committee on Transportation Services) all plans for alterations of or additions to roads and parking lots on the Ithaca campus of the University.”

For more information, check out the web site listed in the sidebar above, or email Minakshi Amundsen, University Planner at mma29@cornell.edu.

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