WSU Vancouver needs a well-sited parking garage inside the loop road and shouldn’t violate its own Master Plan, trashing the campus with automobile sprawl for the rest of us.
WSU Vancouver inserted a design for a 250-car parking lot on the North campus boundary with NE 160th St. into its Master Plan contrary to basic tenets of the original plan; also a 54-car lot on the west boundary.
The very big parking lot will back onto or share a sight line with the greatest concentration of houses on this large suburban campus – breaking an informal agreement at WSUV’s inception not to put something ugly near Mt. Vista homes. A sea of cars will spoil the walk from 33rd Ave. that Clark County and Mt Vista residents have enjoyed for years.
Here is information from Pages 1-2 of the Master Plan:
“… the issue of providing parking that is convenient yet inconspicuous has been carried further, with proposals for parking structures let into the slope of the land instead of expanding surface parking lots outward towards the campus boundaries.”
Expanding surface parking lots outward toward the campus boundaries is exactly what the original Master Plan of WSU Vancouver opposed. And this parking won’t be exactly convenient (a long walk from the center of campus) or inconspicuous (where do you hide 250 parked cars?)
WSU Vancouver seeks in the Master Plan “to set an example of environmental responsibility” and “to protect the natural and physical assets of the campus.” Paving over a pristine field to make one of the bigger parking lots on campus (which might expand downhill) is not protecting the natural assets of campus. It is encouraging automobile sprawl. Too many cars overwhelm a landscape – see A Pattern Language, Oxford UP, 1977, a well-known architectural reference.
WSU Vancouver seeks “to allow for development to occur in a manner that does not adversely affect the community.” The university has been telling the neighbors for years that they must accept either a parking garage or a sea of cars in their midst, contrary to the Master Plan. As a state university, WSU Vancouver should make an effort to get along with the community/neighbors, not just push this very destructive parking lot through.
Please contact Governor Inslee, President Floyd, Chancellor Netzhammer, and the Board of Regents ASAP to build a well-sited parking garage inside the loop road, not the 250- and 54-car surface lots.
Pamela Webster
Ridgefield
