CSUN MULLS NEW MASTER PLAN CAMPUS GROWTH WOULD BE ADDRESSED.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

With enrollment expected to soar over the next decade, creating a huge demand for parking and campus housing, officials at California State University, Northridge, began work Monday on a master plan to guide development through 2035.

In morning and evening sessions that drew more than 70 people, campus officials explained key growth concerns and heard public input for the new plan, titled Envision 2035.

The blueprint, which will be developed over the next year, replaces a 1998 plan that focused on rebuilding the campus following the devastating Northridge Earthquake four years earlier.

``We did a master plan in 1998, but a lot of it was reactive to the earthquake situation, so this is really our first comprehensive master plan in quite a while,'' said finance professor William Jennings, who is chairing a 25-member committee of students, faculty and community members working on the master plan.

The university is paying $850,000 to AC Martin Partners, a Los Angeles urban design and planning firm, to help create the plan. While CSUN officials declined to project enrollment growth, the CSU system is expecting to grow 30 percent by 2012, to 412,000 students.

CSUN already has an enrollment 33,000, or the equivalent of 24,472 students, if all attended full time. Like many of the state's public universities, CSUN is approaching its maximum enrollment of 25,000 full- time students specified in its current master plan.

For every additional 2,000 full-time equivalent students, CSUN will need to add two buildings and 900 parking spaces, said Richard Thompson, an architect with AC Martin.

The 353-acre campus has room for expansion on its north side, which would be ideal for university housing for both students and faculty, he said. But it will be difficult to find room for academic buildings while fulfilling the campus' goal of preserving open space.

Another issue is how the university will manage traffic and parking without adversely impacting neighbors. CSUN also will have to consider what buildings it will need to meet the teaching and research demands of the future, how to improve the quality of life for students, and how to become ``a better part of the Valley community,'' Thompson said.

Bob Mosher, 79, of Northridge has seen the campus change dramatically over the 40 years he's lived in the area. He came to the meeting mainly to see how the campus plans to deal with increasing traffic, and said he was pleased campus officials wanted community input.

``I think it's excellent,'' Mosher said of the forum. ``They explained to me some of the things about traffic. I'm impressed.''

The next community meeting on the plan will be in November.

Lisa M. Sodders, [phone]

lisa.sodders(at)dailynews.com

TO LEARN MORE

--For more information on Envision 2035, contact CSUN's Judy Nutter at [phone] or log on to www.csun.edu/pubrels/envision2035.

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