Yukon College is getting more land - about three times more land than it currently has.
That’s good news for the school, said Paul Flaherty, chair of the college’s board of governors.
“We’re outgrowing our size very quickly,” Flaherty said.
“With the new Centre for Northern Innovation in Mining, and the research centre and the Northern Institute for Social Justice, we are already full right now,” he said.
The expansion to the college’s reserve lands will help the school finish its master plan, Flaherty said, which could then allow for even more growth in the future, possibly even becoming a full-fledged university.
“We also need to decide what our future is going to look like. Are we going to morph into something larger? Most schools down south operate on 50- to 100-year horizons, but even the University of Calgary ran out of space,” he said.
The expansion triples the college’s land footprint, and runs from the eastern bank of McIntyre Creek to Mountain View Drive and as far south as the Takhini subdivision.
Now that the college knows just how much land it has to use, it’ll be up to the school to draft a land-use plan, Flaherty explained. The full master plan is expected to be finished within five years.
That work will take place in parallel with the planning for the new mining school building, which will likely be built on the existing footprint, Flaherty said.
For the new land, the school will be looking first at increasing its residence size so it can accept more out-of-town students.
“More residence space is very high up on the wish list,” Flaherty said, “but we’d also like more academic and research space, especially if we look to becoming a university.
Contact Jesse Winter at
jessew@yukon-news.com