McMaster University Campus Plan : 2023-2033

McMaster’s new Campus Plan reflects our collective goals and provides a pathway to help us realize these bold aspirations.   

Over the past year, McMaster engaged with students, faculty, staff, partners and community members to gather feedback on what should be included in the Campus Plan. This consultation helped to focus the plan around five themes including re-imagining key entrances to campus; safe and sustainable transportation; the importance of broader sustainability advancements; more housing options and green spaces; and the creation of spaces to innovate and collaborate.

Much of what we heard from our community is echoed in existing university strategy and is aligned with key institutional priorities. The Campus Plan provides opportunities to engage our community and offers design ideas that prioritize functionality, sustainability, accessibility, and inclusion, while supporting the creation of an attractive campus environment that promotes innovative learning, teaching, research, and community engagement. 

The plan provides a framework for designing and refurbishing buildings to deliver contemporary research, teaching, learning, and administrative spaces that facilitate our teaching and research excellence, and support the recruitment of high-calibre faculty, staff, and students. The plan outlines opportunities to promote densification and envisions more housing options for students, faculty and staff on campus, nearby campus and along key transit routes.

This innovative plan reinforces McMaster’s Sustainability Strategy by reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions at our locations, with the goal of becoming a net zero carbon campus. As an important part of our commitment to Reconciliation, and in keeping with a Two Row Wampum approach, the University endeavours to engage in a responsible and collaborative land stewardship process. The plan includes ways McMaster can protect its ecologically sensitive lands, better address the climate and biodiversity emergency, and promote sustainable, active transportation. 

This consultation process offered our community a way to explore and prioritize opportunities to
re-imagine our campus. But the plan is dynamic and will need to adapt to our ever-changing university, new technologies and funding opportunities. 

By consciously shaping the buildings, outdoor spaces and infrastructure of our campus and locations over the next decade in ways that align with McMaster’s vision and community voices, we are helping to bring our collective vision to life and shape the experience our faculty, staff and students well into the future.

The public and neighbouring communities were invited to give feedback through online surveys and attend in-person exhibitions held in the Ainslie Wood neighbourhood and on campus. These were offered at the start of the Fall 2022 semester and again early in the new year. The findings from these engagements have been invaluable in shaping the Campus Plan, informing the framework and development options within the plan.

The second in-person exhibition outlined the refined principles and directions of the emerging Campus Plan which were presented to both the university community and the public for feedback. 

The survey at this stage of the Plan’s development saw 1,072 respondents, including students, faculty, staff, alumni and neighbouring community members. 

The survey demonstrated overarching support for the principles behind the Campus Plan, with a number of important themes emerging from the survey responses. The development of increased and new housing options on campus, nearby to campus and along key transit routes, as well as the provision of safe, accessible and sustainable transportation were highlighted as key priorities. Further details about the findings of community engagement undertaken during the development of the Campus Plan are set out in the full version of the plan, which can be found here: facilities.mcmaster.ca

Many internal stakeholders were also consulted during the plan’s development including faculty and administrative department leaders, and others who work in areas promoting sustainability and accessibility, and advancing equity, diversity and inclusion. Student associations, such as the Graduate Student Association and McMaster Students Union, also connected with the project team for input.

McMaster’s team held multiple outreach touchpoints and plan to have continued engagement with the community, as well as many external groups to gather input about the plan. We would like to thank all of our external partners for participating including: Indigenous community leaders, Hamilton Conservation Authority, Royal Botanical Gardens, Niagara Escarpment Commission, Hamilton Health Sciences,  St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster Divinity College, Mohawk College, McMaster’s President’s Advisory Committee on Community Relations (PACCR), Metrolinx, the City of Hamilton, including former mayor Fred Eisenberger, councillor Maureen Wilson and municipal staff, as well the City of Burlington, including mayor Marianne Meed Ward and municipal staff.

We would like to express gratitude for the guidance shared by Indigenous community leaders both at McMaster and outside of the university, including members of the Indigenous Education Council and the Joint Indigenous Advisory Committee Group. Ongoing consultation with Indigenous communities is being sought and this process will go beyond the Campus Plan.

To create the Campus Plan, McMaster partnered with BDP Quadrangle, a skilled team of architects, designers, engineers and urbanists with a track record in creating outstanding university environments around the globe. Their experts from Canada and the United Kingdom were asked to create a bold plan that aligned with our community’s desires and the university’s priorities. Thank you.

McMaster’s Campus Plan approval process involves presentations to the Presidents and Vice-Presidents group, Provost Council, University Planning Committee, Planning and Resource Committee and the McMaster Board of Governors.

Consultation with our community was top of mind throughout the Campus Plan development process. Every one of our students, faculty, staff and community members who participated in telling us what was important to them and provided feedback on the plan’s ideas made a valuable contribution. We hope you see your perspectives reflected in the plan’s vision.

If you have any questions about the Campus Plan, please reach out by emailing planning@mcmaster.ca.