New College must end the mystery over new campus Master Plan

Do you remember Jan. 22, 2024?

It was the day when The New York Times had this Page One headline: "Ron DeSantis ends campaign for president."

It was also the day the public was invited to comment on a draft Master Plan for the New College of Florida campus. Dozens of neighbors, faculty, alumni and students showed up for the session, and there was excitement – and perhaps dread – because the new administration would be revealing its vision for the campus.

However, there was also a palpable sense of annoyance because the document we were being asked to comment on had not been made available on the college’s website. Instead, we were presented with illustrated panels depicting various parts of the campus and a PowerPoint presentation. Then, sitting at tables, those assembled offered suggestions that were ultimately summarized by one reporter from each table.

In the end, roughly 90% of those who were present at the session did not get to publicly express their views.

By holding that first "hearing," New College ostensibly met a legal requirement for updating a Florida State University System campus Master Plan. But since there was no plan to review, such a claim seems hollow. Let me suggest what a hearing to receive comments on a document should minimally include:

• It should allow everyone who wants to speak about the document to be heard.

• It should ensure that the document speakers are commenting on actually exists – and that it has been made available for review prior to the actual hearing.

I am writing this guest column more than 100 days after that first hearing in January, and the draft Master Plan still has not been made available. In addition, no one seems to know when the draft plan will become available; in fact, several projected dates for revealing it have already come and gone.

One thing is clear: There is not some cumbersome college committee structure that is slowing things down on New College's new campus Master Plan. That’s because at the moment there is no Campus Landscape Committee, no Campus Development Committee and no Campus Master Plan Committee.

I’ll confess: New College's current campus Master Plan took years to update. I know because I chaired the last Campus Master Plan Committee – but while it was not an expedient process, it was thorough and inclusive.

The plan was prepared (following a competitive search) by Moule and Polyzoides, a distinguished California new urbanist design and architecture firm that was assisted by eight subcontractors (most of them local). The current Master Plan is a heavily illustrated, large format document of 88 pages. It is not known if New College's new plan will be an edited and updated version of the current plan, or if the current firms working on it started from scratch.

One wonders how the draft Master Plan will reflect the recent correspondence from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which seemed to nix the sale of the eastern Pei campus that has been leased from the airport – and also appeared to question whether the college had any right to use the East campus at all.

Yikes!

The college has controlled this property for 62 years only to find that this proposed sale has the FAA raising questions about the appropriateness of “non-aeronautical” land use. It noted that all airport properties should be zoned Airport/Light Industrial, and the best use might be “office space for speculation/development.” Among the problems the FAA sees with the college campus are conflicts with “residential, educational, recreational, and water retention areas.”

That covers just about everything

In addition, the FAA found the current 99-year lease was too long, the terms too favorable and the properties used for the real estate valuation were not comparable. New College President Richard Corcoran and Sarasota-Bradenton Airport CEO Rick Piccolo deserve credit for trying to resolve a campus land use issue that should have been solved years ago. But will the college administration, with its demonstrated political muscle and ties to Gov. DeSantis, be able to rescue the land sale? Time will tell.

More: New College gave Richard Corcoran a $200,000 bonus. Here's how he can prove he deserves it.

In the meantime, the FAA’s exploding worm can of objections seems to threaten the very existence of roughly one-third of the campus. Does this mean the college has to put forward two distinct master plans – one with and one without the East campus?

In any event, that first "hearing" on Jan. 22 was anything but a hearing. The New College of Florida community and neighbors deserve a do-over just as soon as the draft Master Plan actually exists – and, of course, only after we get to actually read it.

Jono Miller is a local educator and former co-director of New College of Florida's environmental studies program. He chaired a previous Campus Master Plan Committee at New College and currently serves as president of NCF Freedom, an entity working to preserve academic freedom, shared governance and student agency at New College.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: New College of Florida's campus plan remains a confusing mystery