The News Site of Fresno City College

The Rampage Online

The News Site of Fresno City College

The Rampage Online

The News Site of Fresno City College

The Rampage Online

OAB Parking Crisis

The Academic Senate has approved an interim parking plan created on Jan. 19 for the Old Administration Building due to the request of the Porter Tract residents of Fresno.  They say that there needs to be a parking plan in place before we start using the auditorium to hold public events in the beautiful and newly restored OAB.  

The Porter Tract was designated a Local Historic District by the Fresno City Council in April 2001. It was the city’s     first official historic district. The district’s boundaries are Weldon Avenue on the south; Maroa Avenue on the west; the rear property line of Yale Avenue on the north, and College Avenue on the east.

This is not the first time the neighbors have had complaints about the college’s activities.  In the past, they have hired attorneys and threatened to file a lawsuit if the college did not comply with their requests.  

FCC created an Ad Hoc Parking Committee in order to develop a plan for the parking problem.

“There have been complaints from other areas in the neighborhood its just that this one happens to be most vocal,” said Tabitha Villalba, chair of the Ad-Hoc committee for the OAB parking.  

“They are a part of the community too, just as much as the campus is but obviously we have to remember that we are a campus that operates Monday through Friday.  So to say that we are not going to schedule events in there [the OAB] Monday through Thursday, is not going to happen permanently,” said Mrs. Villalba.    

 

In order to be implemented, both the Board of Trustees and the neighborhood association must approve the parking plan.  Until this is done, FCC will not be able to hold any public events in the OAB until after the next board meeting on April 1, assuming that the plan is approved by the board and then by the neighbors.

The Music Department has been labeled as caring the flag, due to the fact that they will be the primary users of the facility.  They did not support the Interim parking plan at first for the following reasons.  No events may be held Sunday through Thursday evenings unless off-campus parking is used.  Shuttles are to be used at the expense of the event sponsor.  Patrons may not park in the lots north of the OAB.  Parking is already prohibited by the neighborhood.  Yet events sponsors  are required to pick up “event related trash” in the neighborhood, when no event parking will take place.  If there is an event in the gym, there cannot be an event on the OAB.

In this letter written by the music department, there closing argument is that “If one buys a home next to a large community college, one should not be surprised that there will occasionally be parking congestion.  Simply put, FCC was here first.”  It goes on to say, “The wishes of 45 residents who purchased homes next to FCC should not be given greater consideration than the 77,000 voters who supported Measure E.”

The permanent plan will be created sometime by next fall.  In the meantime, there is going to be surveys conducted on the parking from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. every hour to see how much parking is needed to host an event during the day.  This data will be used to create the permanent plan and to persuade the neighbors that parking is available on campus during most restricted times in the Interim Parking Plan.  

The parking problem is only one of the nine mitigations presented by the neighbors.  There are weekly meetings held at FCC for the neighbors as well as for the college to raise concern.  

Most of the homes in the Porter Tract were developed by contractor John G. Porter (1876-1970). Porter set up strict architectural controls that required all homes in the tract to be two-story.  He also appears to have exercised considerable control over the architectural design of the homes he built in the tract.

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