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Developing a Comprehensive Housing Strategy: a Case Study by Tim Marsters and Kelly Bliss This case study shares successes in developing a long range comprehensive housing strategy for a college with two noncontiguous campuses in a dense urban, cultural center. Some of the successes included are assembling the in-house planning team, using the institution’s mission statement to guide planning, anticipating needs, understanding available resources, and developing a staged strategy that maintains operational continuity. In the current highly competitive higher education market in North America, many colleges have identified the importance of upgrading their existing residential housing facilities as part of their strategy to attract and retain students. This strategy requires providing new amenities, increased security, and a modern technology infrastructure (including a wireless environment), as well as offering more choices in housing types. According to Abramson (2005, p. 1), “the need for more and better facilities, the cost to students, and budget cuts that affect maintenance and operations are considered the three major issues facing chief housing officers through the next five years.” To be competitive, colleges need to establish strategic plans for the future growth of their residential facilities to handle the anticipated rapid increase in student campus populations. This situation has created substantial interest in effective approaches to designing housing planning strategies. The case study discussed in this article describes the successful planning process used by Perkins+Will and Simmons College to develop a comprehensive housing strategy and plan for the college for the next 10 to 15 years. This process entailed five steps: (1) assembling the in-house Simmons College planning team, (2) considering the impact of the college’s mission statement goals on the proposed housing strategy, (3) identifying the types of housing desired by the college with estimates of the space required, (4) evaluating the resources available to the college
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Tim Marsters and Kelly Bliss. 2007. Developing a Comprehensive Housing Strategy: a Case Study. Planning for Higher Education. 35(2): 37–47.
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