WESTCHESTER RESIDENTS affected by LMU student parking came out in full force to air their complaints at an Aug. 22 meeting with representatives from the university.
BY GARY WALKER
A stalemate on the option of creating a preferential parking district in the immediate area behind the south entrance of Loyola Marymount University continues with no apparent end in sight.
Approximately 150 people came to the Westchester Senior Center Aug. 22 to see what the university’s latest proposal was that could help alleviate the problems associated with parking by LMU students in the neighborhoods adjacent to LMU. As has been reported in The Argonaut, the university is offering to pay for three permit parking passes per household and two guest permit passes if homeowners choose to consider creating a preferential parking zone to counteract members of the school faculty and students parking near, and at times in front of, their homes.
LMU officials have stressed such a parking zone cannot be imposed by them on residents and it is an option for the neighbors to consider. The Los Angeles City Council is the entity that approves parking districts, with consultation from the city’s Department of Transportation.
The university announced last year that they would begin charging students to park on campus, which homeowners who live near LMU’s southern entrance say has led to an avalanche of student vehicles that often prevents the homeowners, and at times their homecare workers, from parking near their residences.
LMU officials say the fees are being used to help pay the debt service on a $37 million bond that was obtained in order to build an underground parking lot on campus.
LMU Vice President of Administration Lynne Scarboro attended the Aug. 22 meeting and announced the results of a parking study conducted by the university from Aug. 13 until Aug. 16 to gauge the interest of establishing a temporary permit parking district.
According to Scarboro, 67 percent of residents surveyed said parking is a significant problem on their street and requires a solution. Of those residents, 63 percent support a one-year temporary pilot preferential parking district.
And of those who did not find parking to be a significant problem, 53 percent back the pilot parking program.
The audience, as has been the case over the last year when LMU representatives and selected members representing the homeowners meet, was largely comprised of people distrustful of the university and very vocal about their displeasure at the current parking situation.
Many skewered the parking evaluation, as well as the results, and accused the university of slanting its questions.
“Whether you agree with the results or not, this is what came out of the survey,” Scarboro replied to a group of residents who verbally expressed disbelief at the figures.
Others, like Dennis Tripp, who lives near the corner of Gonzaga Avenue and 80th Street, recommended that the university close the southern gate entrance.
“In my opinion, we should close the gate first (instead of creating a parking district) and see what happens,” said Tripp.
Scarboro said the survey results were somewhat unexpected given what has been stated publicly about the neighborhood’s opposition to parking districts.
“We were surprised to see the significant level of support we found because early on we had heard mostly from residents who oppose the preferential parking district,” she said. “It’s interesting what you find when you knock on people’s doors and ask them for their opinions.”
The university vice president also said LMU is reluctant to close the south gate, especially after having closed other gates after a group of residents made the request following the approval of the master plan.
Many in the audience repeated a refrain from past meetings, accusing LMU of seeking to impose a parking district on them in order to bring in more revenue through parking fees, and they demanded that LMU rescind them.
The rhetoric at times was overheated and straddled the lines of decorum. One man called LMU evil and compared the school representatives to Nazi storm troopers. “They think they’re the good guys, but they’re not,” he asserted, standing within inches of Scarboro as he attacked what he said were the university’s deceitful intentions.
“We have been very clear that the parking fees are offsetting the costs of the bonds that were used to finance the new parking that is being built on campus,” Scarboro reiterated when asked to respond to eliminating the parking fees. “We even provided the neighbors with a legal analysis to address their questions on this topic.”
Erika Kemmerer, who lives on Fordham Road and is a member of a committee of residents, LMU students and administration officials, asked what the next step would be after the two-hour meeting. “Where do we go from here?” Kemmerer asked Nate Kaplan, the deputy district director for Councilman Mike Bonin.
“LMU is working hard to be a good neighbor and to follow through on the parking district as clearly spelled out in the master plan that was approved in 2011,” Scarboro told The Argonaut after the meeting. “There’s no question it was a tough meeting, but it certainly will not impact how we approach relations with our neighbors. Having a good relationship with the neighborhood is important to us.”
Kemmerer said having Scarboro and LMU spokesman Steven Sugerman at the meeting was beneficial to the discussion. “It’s one thing to be told about the community’s sentiments, but it’s another to actually hear the community’s sentiments,” she said. “So I think that was helpful to both of them.”
In past meetings, LMU Community and Local Government Relations Director Clarence Griffin chaired the meetings.
Challenges appear to abound for Bonin, who represents Westchester, considering how far apart the homeowners and LMU appear to be.
Near the end of the meeting, several of the residents asked Kaplan to arrange a meeting with Bonin and some of their representatives.
Scarboro said the university will continue to try to work through their difficulties with their immediate neighbors.
“We understand that there are challenges living next to a university but there are also significant benefits, and we want to make sure our neighbors experience more of the benefits,” she said. “We want to develop stronger relations with our neighbors and continue to discuss ways to work together, going beyond issues around parking.”
Gary@ArgonautNews.com
Left out of this article: Only 35% of the neighborhood responded to the questionnaire, which was far from scientific. It was designed and counted by LMU’s PR firm. The results cannot be extrapolated to the population with any degree of confidence, despite what Lynne Scarboro says.
LMU caused this problem. This “survey” is the same as LMU lighting our houses on fire and then surveying the neighborhood to see if we want water.
Let’s do another survey–with everyone this time–and see who wants LMU to stop charging $670 per year for parking. That solves the problem. We’ll let the neighbors, students, faculty, and staff design and count the survey. That’s fair, right?
LMU has the power to fix this problem they created in a revenue-neutral way by building the parking cost into the tuition. Charge all students for parking. The price drops about 80%, and LMU still makes their money. It’s the right thing to do, and LMU knows it.
What about for LMU students who don’t drive to campus? Seems unfair that they should have to pay for parking they don’t use.
A 35% response rate is much greater than the 0.4% of Westchester who showed up to this meeting screaming, shouting, and degrading LMU staff who are trying to help the neighborhood work out a solution. Charging every student for parking is insane: it would impose yet another cost burden on many students who are already going into debt to pay for college, and it would create more traffic in the neighborhood by encouraging students to bring cars who otherwise would not. LMU has shown there is a large majority of people open to a pilot program, so we should start there and see how it goes rather than not listening to our neighbors and calling anyone who disagrees “Nazis.”
LMU *caused* the problem. If they were so interested in working out a solution, they should have not caused the problem. They also have the power to fix it.
I’m sorry they decided to charge their students $700 to park. I feel for those students and staff members, especially the hourly workers that LMU hit very hard. When I went to LMU, all students paid for parking, and the cost was reasonable because it was spread out over many more people. I get that LMU has a building to pay for. It’s unfortunate they didn’t plan a little better and work out this issue BEFORE breaking ground. Rolling the parking fee into tuition is revenue neutral. They can still make their bond payment.
We’re trying to help them find a solution, but only LMU can fix the problem they caused.
Charging all students for parking would not be the right thing to do for over 3,000 students that live on campus. Parking fees are fair charges for those who drive to school but not for those who do not.
I was there at the meeting and what was not reported is that, despite the repeated claims of trying to be a good neighbor, LMU is anything but. The parking problem is just the latest issue to have arisen primarily because, despite years of “relative” calm with respect to sharing parking space in the surrounding neighborhoods, LMU’s has now decided to create a new problem, by refusing to negotiate on the issue of on-campus parking fees and access, among the highest in the area according to some who were at the meeting, which would effectively alleviate the problem with a stroke of a pen. We also heard about the “green” trash compactor problem, which LMU itself created by placing it within feet of the property lines of their neighbors and has been a growing source of noise and worse, rats and other rodents, never mind the smells. Now, and it will become more pronounced as the year progresses, LMU has installed hi powered night field lights for their sports events which shine directly into the homes of local residents. And the good neighbor had to do is simply hold day games, In legal parlance that is what is known as a “nuisance”. LMU is not a good neighbor, has no interest in being a good neighbor, and frankly will only be stopped if the entire Master Plan, which was pushed through City Hall with the same degree of scrutiny as ObamaCare, is re-evaluated, either by the city or a judge.
The only solution for us immediate residents is closing the south entrance to campus. I live across the street and these “benefits” Ms. Scarboro is talking about include having party buses with sometimes hundreds of intoxicated students waiting to board, students disturbing the peace, and urinating on our properties, lack of parking in the neighborhood, high intensity lighting and a sound system from the soccer field that makes our houses feel like a club, fights, alcohol bottles left on our properties, vandalism, trespassing, and many other inconveniences. As an alumnus, son of an alumnus, husband to an alumnus, and lifelong resident of Westchester, I am saddened that the school I love is behaving so badly towards us neighbors.
Oh, and if anyone from LMU is reading this, please stop soliciting me for donations.
Doesn’t this entire situation make hash of Donald Shoup’s “high cost of free parking” argument? The reality is that overpriced parking just squeezes cars out into other places. Free parking at LMU would be better and less disruptive.
No. It makes the argument that cars will park where parking is free, which is Shoup’s exact point. If there was a preferential parking district in the area, then parking would no longer be available for LMU commuters, which would push them to park on campus. Free parking at LMU is untenable because the parking garage needs to be paid for.
Like I said, close the south entrance to the campus and only use the Lincoln Blvd. entrance. This is really the only long term solution to the parking problem and disorderly student problem. As LMU grows in population, not even free parking will prevent the problems that we have seen escalate over the years. The $750 parking permit only exacerbated the inevitable issues of a growing LMU student population .
You’re missing the point. Free parking makes the parking situation worse.