[Vision2020] NSA & Equitable CUP Parking Mitigation

[Scott Bauer]

Visionaries,
   
  Presumably NSA, even if permitted conditionally, would at least operate at the current size or, given traditional growth rates, expand. 
   
  The Jackson Street parking lot has 140 parking slots. According to the City’s own off-street parking schedule, NSA currently creates a parking demand of approximately 100 parking slots. (NSA is beginning to spill over into other downtown buildings already).
   
  Although NSA’s building is small (approx 13,000sf.) it creates a need, as it operates now, for a parking lot approximately 2/3rds the size of the entire Jackson Street parking lot.
   
  According to the City’s own parking schedule if the AT&T building were being used by an unclassified retail businesses, it would generate less than 1/3rd of NSA’s parking traffic.
   
  Having familiarized myself with several off-street parking schedules it appears that Colleges, in general, can generate significantly more traffic per square foot of floor area than do many ordinary retail uses.
   
  NSA is essentially a non-tax paying special-interest group receiving parking entitlements from general municipal tax dollars, and as a result is interfering with the parking rights of small retail shop owners and the access rights of community users who are entitled to first priority in parking for commercial, cultural, retail, and entertainment purposes, according to the City’s own Comprehensive Plan. 
   
  If NSA enlarges or expands, or if other colleges operate within the CBD, a need for an expensive tax-payer financed multi-story parking structure could easily be created.
   
  One of the traditional reasons City’s exempt downtown business owners from off-street parking requirements and impact fees is because Comprehensive Plans ordinarily prioritize and reserve downtown space for activities which serve the general population instead of only serving the needs of non-tax paying special-interest groups. Moscow’s Downtown is simply not a place where special interests should find shelter from their obligations to pay their fair share of parking-development costs.
   
  If the City Council feels sympathy for NSA which moved Downtown after being specifically instructed not to operate in premises without zoning certificates, then how much sympathy does the City Council feel for nearby small business owners who had no notice that NSA was operating without the proper credentials, and further, how much sympathy does the City Council feel for the entire community who is paying tax dollars to subsidize a special interest which is interfering with the parking opportunities of general area commercial users.
   
  Finally, if NSA eventually expanded to the median size of other private not-for-profit liberal arts colleges it would have an enrollment of 2000 in the downtown core.  Under the current off-street parking schedule this would, progressively, generate the need for 1,340 government subsidized parking slots, through small gradual incrimental amendments to its CUP.  (If the City lacks the political will to prevent the subsidy of 100 parking slots, then where will the City draw the line? 200, 300, ?).  Perhaps we can rely upon NSA's representations that it will never change its enrollment policy, perhaps not.
   
  Scott

		
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