The Parking Advisory Committee at the College of William and Mary unanimously approved a proposal to increase student parking by 65 spaces Friday.
Director of Parking Services Bill Horacio headed the committee, which was comprised of 10 faculty and staff members as well as two students.
The main concern of Friday’s meeting was to address the parking problems on the west side of campus near Morton, Adair and Miller Hall.
The parking deck is the primary source of parking for this area of campus. Although the deck has been under-utilized by the faculty and staff this year, the day-student lot is consistently filled.
This has resulted in the tardiness of many commuter students.
Horacio tentatively took 25 parking spots from the faculty and staff and reallocated them to day students prior to the committee’s meeting.
Horacio also determined that there were an additional 50 spots that could be permanently converted from the faculty and staff to mixed-use status.
Spaces that are designated as mixed-use are reserved for faculty, staff or day students on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Last year, the parking spots located on the first floor of the parking deck were designated as mixed-use.
The committee discussed exactly how many of the available spaces should be switched from faculty and staff parking to mixed-use.
The greater portion of the debate concerned procedure during event days.
In the case of special occasions, such as conferences or guest speaker lectures, parking services is known to take away only faculty and staff parking.
Members of the advisory committee were concerned that giving too many spots to College students would result in a parking shortage during such events.
A number of committee members, including Director of Recreational Sports Linda Knight, were in favor of allocating just 50 spots to students. Student Assembly Sen. Erik Houser ’10, one of the two student committee members, did not believe this was enough to ease the problems facing student parking.
“From a student perspective, we needed as many spots as we could get to make sure the problem was fixed,” Houser said.
A compromise that would convert 65 spots to mixed-use status was reached, with spots one through 10 remaining designated as faculty and staff parking exclusively.
Horacio approved the arrangement, and the committee unanimously voted to recommend the proposal to the administration.
The recommendation is subject to approval by Vice President of Administration Anna Martin, who received the proposal Monday.
Horacio anticipates that Martin will approve the plan recommended by the parking advisory committee.
