Over 200 hundred frustrated residents and students packed the usually tranquil city council chambers Tuesday night as the council discussed one of the most divisive issue in Happy Valley: parking.

After four hours of public comment, the council voted 7-0 to create two new permit parking programs in the University Gardens and Foothill neighborhoods.

Effective Jan. 1, 2008, students will no longer be able to park between Belmont place and 1480 East, and overnight parking will be prohibited north of 500 North between 900 East and 1250 East.

"It is the owner or landlord's responsibility to provide enough parking for their tenants, not local residents," council member Cindy Richards said.

According to Richards, the Arlington and Belmont Condos were originally zoned for family parking, requiring two spaces per unit. Currently, both complexes house primarily single adults and should be "batch housing," which requires four spaces per unit; that means there are too many cars for the spaces provided.

"Obviously if the permit parking zones are enacted there's still about three and a half cars per unit," Foothill neighborhood chair Norman Thurston said. "But it brings the problem home to the condo owners association."

Matthew Colling, a BYU graduate student and Arlington resident, says permit programs won't solve anything.

"It'll just shift the problem to another neighborhood," he said. "Our landlords aren't going to make new parking."

According to Attorney David Shaw, not only are the new parking zones not a permanent solution, they may end up forcing students to move and cost the city in the long run.

"What would happen if we cut a third of BYU students from our sales tax base? Everybody can buy a residential parking permit except residents in King Henry, the Belmont, and Arlington," he said. "Perhaps we ought to consider public transportation that reaches into these areas. This doesn't solve the problem, it puts a band-aid on it."

Despite the opposition, most students are willing to comply provided they're given enough time to find housing with adequate parking.

"We're willing to comply, we just need the time," said BYU senior Greg Hollingsworth.

Most housing contracts aren't up until the end of winter semester and some students fear inadequate parking will force them to move, but according to Richards, students in the effected complexes don't have to move "if [they] and [their] cars aren't joined at the hip."

"It's not our cars, it's our jobs," BYU junior Kyle Bunker said.

Students filed out of city hall when a motion by Councilwoman Cindy Clark to extend the grace period to April failed to pass.

"I think the neighborhoods have suffered enough," council chair George Stewart said.

Residents cited instances of vandalism, trespassing, loud music and dangerous driving as symptoms of parking problems.

"The problem we have today is that people want to enjoy the benefits of something that wasn't paid for," Mayor Lewis Billings said. "If people want the revenue for higher occupancy they have to provide enough parking. This isn't a solve-all, it's just the next step."



Copyright Brigham Young University 18 Oct 2007