In order to accommodate the lack of desired faculty spaces, 100 parking spots will be added to employee lot 7 off of Seventh Street in.
“We’ve heard from many people for a while that there’s more parking needed,” said California State University, Long Beach Vice President of Administration and Finance Mary Stephens. “We hear from faculty particularly looking for parking spaces when they get to work.”
Headed by Stephens, the project would compensate for the increase in classes on upper campus since the renovation of the Liberal Arts buildings.
Chair of the Academic Senate Praveen Soni said that the topic for convenient parking was continuously brought up with no strong intentions until the discussion reopened on the floor of the senate April 23 during the Academic Senate meeting.
“For a number of years faculty members and Academic Senators have been complaining about the serious lack of parking for faculty on upper campus,” Soni said via email. “I guess I should say that finally faculty complaints have had an impact and at least plans have been made.”
The project, intended to begin summer 2016, would require the removal of the greenery leading to the south turnaround behind the University Library.
Stephens said that the conversion and construction of the lot would require a parking fee increase, which would first need to be negotiated with CSULB affiliated employee and faculty unions.
Present contracts, such as the Unit 4 Ratified 2014 Agreement of the Academic Professionals of California, already state restrictions on fee increases until 2017. Employee parking fees cannot be raised more than $1 a month per fiscal year, according to the document.
The average semester employee-parking permit costs about $60, depending on special employee categories. Student parking permits cost $123 per semester.
In estimating budgets for the pending project, Stephens said that building a parking structure would be avoided because it would cost about $19 to $20 thousand per space.
“We’re finding a compromise of doing a surface lot which we can do faster and less expensively,” Stephens said.
Stephens said that she also want to avoid extensive parking additions in the area to promote commuters to use sustainable means of transportation such as biking, bussing and shuttling.
CSULB President Jane Close Conoley said CSULB will expand the free buss program, increase and expand shuttle routes closer to students living near campus, build more bike paths on campus and within the city and improve bike storage on campus all during lot 7’s makeover.
“Our carbon footprint comes mostly from commuting students,” Conoley said via email. “We have to promote alternative transit rather than just building more parking spots.”
The next step of the project will be to take care of financial planning and consultation development during this summer so formal meet and confers can take place with the unions through the CSU chancellor’s office in the fall.
The new parking spaces are intended for faculty and employees, but will be made available to students after 5:30 p.m. Existing parking lots will be resurfaced and handicap development this summer.