Rise And Shine, Park Cities (2-8-11)
Now that Richie Sambora, The Situation, and Demi Moore have presumably flown back to their respective coasts, let’s get back to business.
1. Snow. Ice. Again. Tomorrow?
2. Those hoping to stock up on pizza for the impending storm (That’s a thing, right? Stocking up on pizza?) would be wise to head to California Pizza Kitchen in Preston Center today for lunch or dinner. If you print out this flier, and hand it to your server, 20 percent of the tab will go to support Hyer Elementary.
And, if you don’t like pizza, our address is 750 N. St. Paul Street, Suite 2100, Dallas.
3. Today’s UP Planning and Zoning Commission meeting will take on the future of the Chase Bank building. In other news, the sun will rise, you will continue to pay taxes, and someday you will die.
The public hearing starts at 4 p.m.
4. A new project at the corner of SMU Boulevard and Greenville Avenue kicked off construction last month, bringing 417 apartments and 9,100 square-feet of retail with it, according to a project spokeswoman. Well, technically not with it right now, but in a bit.
So if you’ve been using the lot as a cut-through on your walk from Bangkok City to the Angelika, I wouldn’t anymore. You know, rats and safety and trespassing and whatnot.
The project is immediately north of UP’s Peek Service Center.
5. Neighbors to the immediate west and north of SMU should expect a letter soon from University Park officials outlining their proposal for a parking district around the campus. Councilmen approved sending the letter at last night’s City Council meeting.
The City Council didn’t vote on two of its agenda items last night, however: one item regarded a property on Turtle Creek Boulevard for possible lease, and the second on a scholarship fund for city employees. The lease item has been removed indefinitely, while the scholarship item will most likely be picked up again at the next meeting.
My vote on scholarship fund for city employees: No
When does the madness end?
Is the city having problems attracting and keeping quality employees? Because that’s the only reason that they should offer to establish a scholarship fund.
It’s time for cities (not just ours) to start acting like businesses, which is what they are.
What exactly is a parking district?
Is SMU now trying for a parking lot? In a residential area?
#5 SMU parking district: The current level of parking enforcement and fines do not make financial sense for students to pay for an SMU parking permit. What are the chances that they will get a ticket from the city? Once or twice a semester? It is still cheaper to park on the street and risk a ticket. Rather than inconvenience the residents with permits and guest passes and additional vehicle permit fees, why not try additional enforcement of the current parking district (two hour) and raising the fines?
The city says that implementing resident-only parking would include an annual fee for permits by the residents the ordinance would benefit, due to the added cost of enforcement. This is ridiculous.
SMU is the cause of the parking problem on neighboring streets, because they make paying for a campus permit optional. Since they are the cause of the problem, the city should hold them accountable for fixing it–either by not charging students to park on campus, or by supplying the enforcement of the resident parking district (so there would be no cost to residents).
I imagine those non-SMU apartments are required to have a certain number of parking spaces to accommodate their residents. Why is SMU not held to the same standards? Why are the NEVER held to the same requirements as the rest of the city? Is it because the people who run this city are big SMU donors? (Yes)
If U.P does not have enough resources now to enforce the two hour parking on the streets around SMU then what makes them think they will be able to enforce people parking without permits. I live on one of those streets and actually the parking problem isn’t as bad as it once was. If they do decide to do permit parking, residents should not have to pay an annual fee and should be able to get a permit for each car they have instead of just two per household. Instead of having to go to city hall for visitor parking passes just give out permanent passes that can be hung from your windshield mirror. The idea of having to go to city hall to get visitor permits is very inconvenient and would increase the work load for U.P. staff.
Why does the Council insist on a parking district when the citizens were overwhelmingly against it at their meeting last year and the Council was told to have SMU fix the problem? Did the council members just forget all the negative comments to a parking district—there weren’t any positive comments at the meeting?
The homepage of the City’s website has additional information about the proposed parking district, including a map and an FAQ.
Use the proposed scholarship fund to pay for parking enforcement.
I was surprised to learn (in the FAQ section mentioned above by Steve Mace) that under this new parking district proposal, UPPD officers would deliver guest parking passes to my door. Really? Wow. Did I get that right?
I also noticed in reading the Arbor that the city no longer plans to charge residents for their passes, which is (thankfully) different than what city staff had previously told me.