Student Government unanimously approved a resolution Tuesday supporting the continuation of UT-sponsored graduate student housing.
The proposal was drafted in response to the Brackenridge Tract Task Force Report, which said that the land occupied by 515 graduate and married student apartments may be more suitable for commercial development. Marina del Sol, a Student Government graduate representative, said Student Government based the resolution on a proposal written by Erik Malmberg of the Graduate Student Assembly.
Since the UT System conceived the task force in July 2006, the lucrative potential for the tract's development has stirred controversy among University faculty, students, the city of Austin, West Austin residents and real estate developers. The group assessed the value and potential uses of the 345-acre tract, which was donated to the University in 1910 for educational purposes.
"Page 33 of the report questions whether the University should offer housing to graduate students at all, which would be kind of extreme," del Sol said. "Other universities have extensive graduate student housing. Who's going to want to come here if we don't have that?"
Del Sol said the UT regents should be more open about how much money could potentially be made off of the tract before considering a housing relocation.
"What money are they going to make? Are we talking about hundreds of millions of dollars? I would like access to that kind of information," del Sol said. She added that students were denied a voice on the task force, which was made up of developers, lawyers and business executives.
Brian Gatten, president of the Graduate Student Assembly, said the assembly does not oppose relocating the apartments, as long as the University continues to sponsor them. But the tract's proximity to UT and to quality education at Mathews Elementary, where many graduate students' children attend school, would be hard to replicate, he said.
"Right now, there's a strong community there, which plays a strong role in helping especially international students transition into life at this University," Gatten said. "But we're not blind to the fact that this is a lot of money we're talking about."
The task force presented its report and recommendations to the UT System last month. The Brackenridge Field Laboratory, home to some of the College of Natural Sciences' most respected research, fared better in the report, which acknowledged the facility's importance to academics, but said its size and location could be reconsidered.
Student Government is not the first group to draft a proposal concerning future development of the tract.
Bob Jansen, professor and chair of the integrative biology department, began writing a proposal for a biodiversity institute a year ago in hopes it would be approved and receive funding as part of the University's capital campaign.
Jansen sent the most recent draft of the proposal to the dean of natural sciences for approval three weeks ago. The proposal includes a suggestion that the institute be located on the tract, Jansen said.
"There's been discussion about establishing an institute of this sort for a number of years," he said.
Jansen said that leaders from five different research units have discussed bringing their groups into a single institution as "one umbrella unit that would focus on biodiversity."
The institute would host the integrative biology department, the Brackenridge Field Lab, the Stengl Field Station, the Texas Natural Science Center, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Plant Resources Center.
The document proposes construction of a building on the tract to house all the University's plant and animal specimens that are spread out in various places for further research and for public use. Another proposal developed by the College of Natural Sciences includes an appeasement for commercial development with a proposal for a public museum, aquarium and the extension of the hike and bike trail throughout the area.
"The idea about putting it at [the Brackenridge Field Lab] was partly in response to showing that we really do have interest in doing something additional with the field lab that we haven't done before," Jansen said. "Many of us feel that it actually is extremely important to the academic mission of the University just the way it is."
"If we don't keep the tract, it doesn't mean we won't want the institute, we just need to find another location," he added.
Additional reporting by Jennilee Garza.
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