Concordia University is looking to the future as it plans for a gradual revamp of its Loyola Campus.
The campus' growing student population is putting pressure on its current facilities, and in preparation for future development on the historic campus, the university is putting together a master plan to protect the campus' charm.
"Right now, we don't have any projects to submit," said Marie-Claude Lavoie, Concordia's Associate Vice-President of Facilities Management. "It's an exercise to complete the vision with the community members, and when I mean community, it's the community at large."
Concordia staff, students, and residents from the neighbouring communities got a glimpse of that vision on Thursday at an on-campus public consultation session.
"My big thing for them is to not be too dense," said Chris Phelan, a long-time resident of the neighbourhood, who himself spent eight years on campus as a student.
"That looks like what they're doing; they're trying to consider all these various aspects so as not to lose that sense of community and relaxed feeling of this campus compared to the downtown campus," he added.
Sustainability was another key priority for some in the audience.
"We have to look at the energy. We have to look at food. We have to look at waste," said John Capobianco, a professor in the department of chemistry and biochemistry who also acts as a sustainability advisor at Concordia.
Mobility, transportation, and protecting green spaces are top priorities, for the school.
"We want to ensure that we're not zoning off areas for biodiversity and only considering those, but that we're thinking about the campus more holistically in terms of thinking about how to introduce best practices for urban greening," said ecology professor Carly Ziter, who has consulted on the Master Plan.
"I was glad to hear in their answer that biodiversity is one of the central priorities of their plan as a whole."
The centrepiece of the campus remains its heritage buildings. The school said not only will it protect and maintain those buildings into the future, but it also plans to keep those buildings as a focal point of the campus' image, vowing not to build in a way that obstructs views of the buildings.
"The campus has older buildings from the early 1900s that are very interesting and that need to be put in value, and there are also views of the green spaces, the courtyards that are also important," said Dominique Dumont, Concordia University's Director of Strategic Facilities Planning.
The Master Plan is in phase three of development, and Concordia is asking for input from the community.
A survey asking for ideas for the future of the campus is open until March 9th.
