From an aerial photo of the Cornell campus in 1933 to conceptual overviews of a futuristic university in 2067, the rigorous, visionary work that has gone into Cornell's Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP) so far was on show to more than 325 members of the Cornell and Ithaca communities on Sept. 26. And "comprehensive," indeed, seems to be the operating term for the emerging draft plan.

In a presentation at an open house in Willard Straight Hall, CMP consultant George Dark of Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto discussed his firm's efforts to incorporate ideas gleaned from public forums and workshops with every constituency that has a stake in how Cornell evolves in this century. Cornell chose Urban Strategies for its focus on process and its fresh ideas for master plans at the Universities of Minnesota, Toronto and Ottawa.

The draft plan seems to include something for just about everyone: For one, it recommends preserving the town-and-country feel of Cornell by conserving the university's lands to the east, including the Cornell Orchards (long thought to be slated for development), research fields and wooded areas.

The focus instead is on developing a compact, more vertical central campus that follows the pattern of the original campus footprint, with improved pedestrian and bicycle routes, a campus-only bus system and underground parking, among other ideas. It also includes visions for developing a university "East Hill village" in the area of East Hill Plaza and the athletic fields along Game Farm Road.

The open lands east and north of the core campus are extraordinarily unique, Dark pointed out. Many campuses, even in rural areas, have succumbed to suburban sprawl. Cornell is still in the position to give the countryside a place of prominence in future development, he said, by linking green spaces with the core campus and surrounding communities so that one could walk or bike around the entire campus virtually unimpeded.

"I feel very strongly about traffic issues and like their ideas for improving bike routes, central transit and expanding the campus with better connections to East Hill," said Sue Powell, a Cornell employee who bikes to work from Lansing, weather permitting.

Khaleel Atiyyeh '10, a city and regional planning major, said more student housing like North Campus is needed. He was curious about the visual concept of residential towers in mid-campus atop research buildings, but said he was wary overall of "trashy architecture" that didn't "make sense with how the campus is put together."

CMP will provide a context for physical changes on campus over the next 25-plus years. The plan is intended to realize the university's research, teaching and outreach missions and its residential, recreational and administrative priorities. The input from the open houses will help to further refine the draft plan over the fall and winter.

About the CMP:
For all you need to know about the CMP, visit http://masterplan.cornell.edu/default.cfm. The online site describes the purpose of the plan, the planning process, background on the Toronto-based consultant team, related planning initiatives on campus, as well as news and upcoming events.

"Frankly, you don't want to be reinventing this every 10 years as you go along," said Dark. "People who do that run into a lot of difficulty in the long term. I give Cornell a lot of credit for trying to think this far ahead."

The final plan, to be presented to the Cornell Board of Trustees in March 2008, will include analyses of the campus and its surrounding environment, a road map for planning and decision-making, and guidelines for implementation.

It is not merely an elegant "conceptual exercise," said Mina Amundsen, university planner and co-chair of the CMP Working Committee with Vice Provost John Siliciano.

"The master plan will serve as a constant reference" for all decisions on physical development of the university, she said. "It is a framework that will provide guidance and a rational process for implementing good development. But it will not specify the type of architecture or where this or that building must be constructed."

CornellCast will present a three-part series, "Point of View," on Cornell's Comprehensive Master Plan, produced by the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs. The program will be accessible later this month.

Scott David Johnson, a graduate student in public administration, is the executive producer of the special, which was broadcast this week on Time Warner Cable's Pegasus Channel 13. Johnson said the series includes: coverage of the history of planning at Cornell; a segment discussing why universities do master planning; in-depth interviews with two of the lead consultants hired for the master plan; and discussions with the Tompkins County planning commissioner, a representative from the Ithaca Downtown Partnership and the Ithaca city planner.

"Cornell is the major economic force in the area and, as such, affects businesses and residents and influences both county and city planning," Johnson said. "We thought getting multiple points of view from not only the planners, but those that are affected by the plan would present an engaging and thought-provoking series. I feel that is what we have with these three programs."