LOCK HAVEN - Any new buildings at the Lock Haven University campus will include more parking if City Council has its wish.
The competition for parking space in close proximity to the university can be intense at times, and council members discussed that problem Monday evening, accompanying the university's request to re-zone some of its property on North Fairview Street.
The request has stirred interest in the neighborhood and has prompted the city's zoning office to review parking requirements.
The ordinance includes conflicting requirements on how many parking spaces must be included with each campus building, Zoning Officer Cyndi Walker said. Other parking concerns came up as the office reviewed the ordinance, she said, which lead to a survey of what other university towns require.
Among the towns surveyed were Bloomsburg, Millersville, East Stroudsburg, West Chester and State College, Walker said, and these communities use a variety of different criteria. Some based the number of parking spaces on the number of classroom seats, some on square footage, some on employment, she reported.
In the end, she brought these recommendations to council on Monday evening:
n Increase the requirement of one parking space for every five students to one space for every three students.
n Increase the requirement for gyms from one parking space for every 15 seats to one space for every 10 seats. (Some university towns require one space for every four seats, Walker said.)
n Require similar parking for stadiums as for auditoriums. (Stadiums currently are not listed.)
n For buildings that are not contiguous (alongside or part of) the main campus, require one parking space for every five classroom seats and-or every two offices.
None of these changes would affect existing buildings, Walker pointed out.
Councilman Jonathan Bravard asked what "contiguous" means in this case. Walker said if a road, railroad tracks or natural feature separates properties, they are still considered contiguous. If a private property sits in between two sections of campus, those sections are not contiguous.
Councilman Alan D. Black asked about handicap spaces, and Walker replied the university is required to install a certain number of them by International Code Council standards.
Council approved sending the recommendations to the city and county planning commissions for review and scheduled a public hearing on them for Oct. 4.
"Now is the time to enter into some very serious discussions with Lock Haven University on their master plan and parking," Council Vice President Steve Stevenson said. "It's time to talk."
The university proposes to build new student housing on and next to its parking lot at 220 N. Fairview St., the former silk mill site. The proposal, which hasn't been fully designed, would create about 680 beds in suite-type housing, according to LHU.
To be able to do that, the university needs to have the parking lot and the former Coploff property alongside it rezoned from "residential high-density" to "public institution."
The rest of the campus is already zoned "public institution."
Two private properties are left in between campus sections on that side of North Fairview Street, the Perry property and the Kleckner property next door, and both would stay zoned residential high-density.
Lester and Betty Kleckner and their daughter Stephanie and husband Joe Waltz attended the meeting, as did Caroline Perry.
Les Kleckner, who resides at 230 N. Fairview St., said the university told him 20 years ago that it intended to acquire his land and build a dorm there.
"We are still here," he said.
The new proposal has him wondering if LHU would take his land to build a parking lot to support the proposed new housing, he said.
His driveway was continually blocked when parking was allowed on his side of North Fairview Street, he said, but now that he lives in a no-parking zone, the situation is better.
Kleckner also asked if the city could potentially step in, rezone his property, acquire it through eminent domain, then sell it to a private developer so it would add more to the tax base. Such steps are being taken in Connecticut and California, he said.
This type of move would be "contrary to the concept of eminent domain," City Manager Richard W. Marcinkevage replied, and Walker said 99 percent of all zoning changes are requested by the property owners themselves.
A public hearing on LHU's rezoning request has been scheduled for Monday, Sept. 13.
