The government will grant a land concession of an undeveloped plot near Coloane’s sprawling Seac Pai Van public housing neighbourhood to the private City University of Macau (CityU) for the construction of a new campus after which it will relocate from its current campus, which is situated on a part of the public University of Macau’s (UM) former campus in Taipa, according to announcements by the Lands and Urban Construction Bureau (DSSCU) yesterday.
According to the announcements, the City University of Macau will pay for the construction of its new campus. After its relocation to the future campus, the private university will revert all facilities on its current Taipa campus to the government free of charge.
After the UM was fully relocated to its current one-square-kilometre Hengqin campus in 2014, the buildings and facilities on its former campus located on a hill area of Taipa island have been shared by three higher education institutions, namely the public the Macao University of Tourism (UTM), the public Macao Polytechnic University (MPU), and the private City University of Macau (CityU).
The MPU and the UTM were previously known as Macao Polytechnic Institute (IPM) and Macao Institute for Tourism Studies (IFTM) before they were upgraded to universities in March 2022 and April this year respectively.
While the UTM and the MPU each currently have their main campus on the Macau peninsula, the Taipa site is the main campus of the CityU, which, however, still has classrooms operating in a number of commercial buildings on the Macau peninsula.
The UM’s current campus is situated in an area of Zhuhai’s Hengqin island. The Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) is exercising jurisdiction over the area, which has been leased from Zhuhai.
Yesterday’s DSSCU announcements about the plot’s land concession in Seac Pai Van to be granted to the CityU came after the Education and Youth Development Bureau (DSEDJ) and the Foundation of City University of Macau, the entity that owns and runs CityU, signed an agreement in February this year according to which the bureau agrees to the university applying for the granting of a land concession earmarked for its new campus.
DSEDJ’s February announcements did not identify the plot.
Macau currently has 10 higher education institutions, comprising four public and six private ones.
In addition to the UM, UTM and MPU, the other public higher education institution is the Macau Public Security Forces Academy (ESFSM) next to Coloane Village.
DSEDJ’s February announcements said that after the CityU’s relocation to its future campus, its current facilities on the Taipa campus will be transferred to public higher education institutions for their respective expansion and development projects, particularly UTM.
A DSSCU statement yesterday said that the Lands and Urban Construction Bureau is currently assessing the Foundation of City University of Macau’s application for the granting of a land concession of a government plot earmarked for the construction of its new campus, adding that the concession will be granted free of charge, also without a public tender to be held. According to the Land Law, a land concession can be granted without a public tender if the plot’s designated use will be in the public interest, including non-profit education purposes.
Yesterday’s statement reaffirmed that the construction costs of the new campus will be fully borne by the Foundation of City University of Macau.
The statement also underlined that after the completion of its new campus project, the university will be required to return all facilities on its current Taipa campus to the government.
The statement said that in the future, the building and facilities on the CityU’s current Taipa campus “will be used to improve teaching facilities of public higher education institutions such as UTM”.
The statement underlined that after DSSCU officials complete their administrative formalities for the granting of the land concession, its agreement will be published in the Official Gazette (BO).
According to information uploaded onto the DSSCU website yesterday, the plot earmarked for the CityU’s new campus is located between the Seac Pai Van reservoir and Ip Heng Building.
Ip Heng Building is a subsidised home-ownership scheme (HOS) estate comprising 10 blocks in the Seac Pai Van public housing neighbourhood, which comprises three HOS estates and one social rental housing estate.
According to the DSSCU website, the plot covers 10,696 square metres, earmarked for the construction of the CityU’s new campus, with a gross construction area of about 53,490 square metres.
This map downloaded from the Lands and Urban Construction Bureau’s (DSSCU) website yesterday shows the plot in Coloane’s Seac Pai Van earmarked for the private City University of Macau’s (CityU) new campus.
This photo taken yesterday shows the undeveloped plot currently covered by bushes located near the Seac Pai Van public housing neighbourhood’s Ip Heng Building. – Photo: Tony Wong
