These can be viewed in the new town hall until September 2nd. The process is “fundamentally open and transparent,” said planning councilor Dietmar Prammer (SPÖ) in a press release on Friday. The location of the new university next to the Johannes Kepler University in Linz-Urfahr has met with much criticism in the city. The citizens’ initiative (BI) “Let’s save the green belt” had collected 7,000 signatures against it by the end of June, because building on the green land would mean losing an important cold air corridor for the city in terms of climate, according to the ecological argument.
Construction scheduled to begin in late 2025
But the BI also finds it questionable from a democratic point of view that the location at Kepler University was already decided on without examining alternatives and without designating the building land. At the beginning of May, the winning project of the architectural competition of the Federal Real Estate Company, the developer of IT:U, was presented to the public. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of 2025.
In the autumn, the rezoning of ten hectares of grassland for the digital university and for business locations is to be decided by the local council. Only the SPÖ and ÖVP are expected to vote in favor, but this means that the necessary majority is in place. As part of this process, the concrete plans are now available. Citizens now have the opportunity “to find out about the details of the planned rezoning at an early stage,” said Prammer. “If there is a legitimate interest, people can also submit suggestions and objections to the magistrate. These will be processed as part of the process,” it continued.
At the same time, the city plans to commission an external company to carry out a comprehensive climate simulation for the university district, as it announced a week ago. Particular attention will be paid to the local cold air corridor, which should be influenced as little as possible.
Meanwhile, the first founding professors of IT:U have also been appointed. Eleven scientists from Austria, Germany, the USA, Japan, Brazil, the Netherlands and Italy were selected from more than 400 applications worldwide. All of them will be conducting research at the interfaces between artificial intelligence, network science, sensor technology and the humanities and natural sciences, founding president Stefanie Lindstaedt announced at the end of July. Names and professorships have not yet been announced.
