Today the Raleigh Planning Commission denied a plan to expand Broughton High School’s parking needs (.PDF) by paving the west half of the school’s historic front lawn.

The grounds at Broughton High School have changed quite a bit over the past few years. The football/soccer/band practice field is now a stadium, and cannot be used for non-athletic events. The school is heavily using, instead, the field across St. Mary’s Street in Fletcher Park. One of the alternative plans to the one denied calls for paving the Fletcher Park field and use it as a parking lot.

Principal Roy Teal spoke to the commission and outlined why he supported a new parking lot on the front lawn. Due to an historic preservation ordinance, trailers are no longer on the front lawn. They are now in the rear parking lot where the teachers used to park. The proposed lot was intended to replace the spaces lost due to the trailer relocation. The school now has 2240 students and 60 parking spaces for them. As a result many more students are parking in surrounding neighborhoods. Mr. Teal feels that students and neighbors would be a lot safer if the students remained on school property as much as possible. He also promised excellent landscaping.

The other change that has seriously impacted the parking situation was the conversion of Cameron Street (“the strip”) to parallel parking. Apparently there was an injury accident a few years ago (and resulting legal action) which prompted the city and the school system to complete the long-prescribed transfer of the strip to the domain of the City. Under City of Raleigh guidelines, 90-degree parking must be at least 18′ deep. The road, however, is only 40′ wide, so there isn’t enough width remaining for traffic to allow 90-degree parking. Several Planning Commission members (including some BHS alumni and parents) requested that the City allow a variance allowing the return of 90-degree parking.

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One alternative mentioned several times throughout the meeting is a parking deck, most likely on the Fletcher site. The last figure I’ve heard is that these cost around $40,000 per space. If the school needs 400 spaces and has 60 spaces, then a 340-space deck would cost nearly $14 million.

Another alternative is to shrink the school’s enrollment. However because of the magnet program bringing in hundreds of students outside of the school’s “natural” district, many classic Broughton neighborhoods are now districted to other schools such as Sanderson and Athens. Magnet students come with a hefty subsidy from the school system, so if the school were pared down, guess which students would be removed (hint: not the magnet students).

One commission member proposed a variance to move the trailers back to the front lawn.

The plan was denied 6-3 based on the commission’s desire to explore other options for gaining spaces.

What I would like to know is why the school’s stadium wasn’t located in Fletcher Park. It is used a couple of dozen times through the year, and its location in the heart of the BHS campus is requiring hundreds of student trips across a busy St. Mary’s street throughout the year. There is even a natural bowl contour in the seldom-used park, and the existing stadium is so cheap, it could easily be dismantled and relocated to Fletcher Park. The main cost at that point is the grading. Here’s a map of the location to which I’m referring ( http://tinyurl.com/5h2hj5 ).

The best solution is to relocate the stadium and allow variances for the return of the front lawn trailers and the 90-degree parking. If that doesn’t satisfy the parking needs, then pave the field across St. Mary’s Street. It wouldn’t be needed for athletics if the old practice field could be used throughout the year.