Parking Plan Faces Town Resistance

Author: Chesley Thurber

After nearly two hours of intense and bitter debate, the Middlebury Town Planning Commission postponed deliberations over Middlebury College's newest parking proposal at its meeting on March 20. The immediate plans to expand parking at the Center for the Arts (CFA) and South Street as well as the potential future construction of a parking lot and new media center on Route 125 sparked criticism from members of the College community and town residents alike. Debate will resume at an open hearing tonight.

The plan under consideration involves an expansion of the current CFA lot and the construction of a new lot on South Street adjacent to Porter Hospital. A new ring of 100 spaces at the CFA would be used for event parking while a new 170-space Porter lot would serve as parking for first-year students. Porter Field Road would also be realigned with two new stop signs.

According to the College's Office of Facilities Planning, the proposal simultaneously seeks to replace spaces that will be lost when construction begins on the Atwater Commons expansion and to move toward the model of a satellite parking system aimed at discouraging student use of cars.

Criticism of the plan emerged quickly. Even before the proposal was formally introduced, the Commission presented a letter written by Chair of the Faculty Council and Associate Professor of Physics Frank Winkler asking the town not to approve any parking proposal on the grounds that the College itself had not yet reached a consensus on its own automotive and parking policies.

The most vehement objections, however, came from members of the Chipman Park residential community, a cluster of homes located just north of the CFA lot. Residents put forth a petition demanding that the Commission veto the proposal to increase the CFA lot as it violates a previous agreement made between the College and the town. The agreement, passed by the Commission on July 10, 2000, allowed the College to increase parking at the CFA lot at the time under the condition that future parking would not expand beyond the current Porter Field Road.

Facilities Planning admitted that the new proposal, which involves moving Porter Field Road further east, does infringe upon the previously set boundary. However, Project Manager Mark Gleason noted that the new proposal allows for features such as improved landscaping and traffic calming that would enhance the quality of life for local residents. "It's just the better plan," said Executive Vice President of Facilities Planning David Ginevan.

The new proposal differs significantly from plans proposed earlier this year. The South Street parking lot is half the size of its original design. According to Ginevan, this would allow both the College and the town to test the concept of satellite parking before making further commitments.

Additionally, the construction of a new access road connecting South Street to Route 30 alongside the CFA has been postponed. Concerns about the safety of the intersection, the damage to a tree and noise pollution affecting the CFA made it unfeasible to include the road in the current plan, explained Gleason. However, the road "is still part of the College's approved Master Plan," he added.

In order for a proposal to be passed through the Planning Commission, it must not have any "undue adverse impact" on the community, said Town Planner Fred Dunnington. Although the town recognizes and supports the College's need to find a solution to its parking problem, the College must prove that this proposal has the least negative effect of all reasonable possibilities, he continued. Such possibilities, as suggested at the meeting, included a ban on cars for first-year students or a lot west of Bicentennial Hall along Route 125. Ginevan stated that a ban on first-year parking was not a realistic consideration at this time as the College is not ready to implement such a policy.

Ginevan ruled out the possibility of the Route 125 lot, citing plans to eventually build a new media and technology center and a commitment to local residents not to build additional parking in that area. The latter reason drew ire from Chipman Park residents, who were dismayed that preference was being given to the smaller Ridgeline community. Ginevan defended the commitment by stating that the extreme proximity of such a lot to the nearby houses would be too harmful to overlook.

Additionally, the College has decided that parking for first-year students on Route 125 would actually be too close to first-year dormitories and would damage the goals of the satellite parking model. The model, endorsed by the Board of Trustees and College President John McCardell, is designed to move parking lots to the periphery of the campus in order to create an automobile-free zone at the center of campus and to encourage students to use alternate methods of transportation such as walking or biking when possible.

Satellite parking has received intense criticism from students who want easy access to their cars. The Student Government Association passed a resolution last semester declaring its opposition to the remote parking philosophy.

An approval of the parking proposal tonight would affirm the town's support of the satellite parking model. A rejection of the current proposal would significantly hamper the College's ability to proceed with both the satellite parking model and the Atwater Commons building project.