As the fall semester approaches, some UT graduate students and Brackenridge residents are ramping up efforts to make their voices heard as a New York design firm considers possible development of the Brackenridge Tract.
The Brackenridge Apartments Tenant Advisory Board met last week with leaders of the Graduate Student Assembly to discuss how the two organizations can work together to address student concerns while the development firm, Cooper, Robertson & Partners, crafts two master plans for the best uses of the tract.
The UT System Board of Regents contracted the firm in March after concluding that the tract was not being put to the best possible use.
Bradley Carpenter, president of the Graduate Student Assembly, said the group is working to create a vision statement with a list of tangible results its members would like to see on the tract, such as how many apartments they feel are necessary to attract graduate students.
"We understand that a small percentage of graduate students live on the Brackenridge Tract," he said. "But we also understand that there would be a larger percentage of students on the tract if more housing was available. It's hard for us to say out of the 12,000 graduate students, we only need the opinions of two or three thousand."
Carpenter, who was elected at the end of the spring semester, said he ran for office to work for graduate student funding and health insurance but soon recognized that more needs to be done to inject student input into the planning process.
The current waitlist of about 600 students defeats the purpose of living on the tract, as the average time spent on the list currently stands at a year and a half, said Paul Michels, a graduate student and Tenant Advisory Board member.
Many of the Brackenridge apartments are at least 30 years old. Michels said energy-efficient improvements in newly constructed units could contribute to meeting the University's plan to maximize the tract's resources and could save the University money.
Tenant Advisory Board officials said they asked UT President William Powers in a January meeting to visit the apartments and issue a formal statement concerning the University's stance on maintaining graduate student housing on the tract.
Powers has not issued a statement but told The Daily Texan he has made his position on graduate student housing on the tract clear in multiple media interviews, testimony before the Board of Regents and communications with the development firm. He said the importance of graduate student housing in some form is vital to attracting top graduate students to the University.
Powers said UT administrators recognize the concerns of the current Brackenridge residents on the tract, such as maintaining a family-oriented community.
"A possibility we may pursue is whether some different location on the tract with new housing might be a better way to go," Powers said.
He stressed that even if the housing is relocated, there is a strong possibility the new location would also be within or near the tract and would allow graduate student families to retain access to Mathews Elementary School. Powers added that no action would be taken on student housing without further discussions on campus.
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