Family-housing residents tell trustees paid parking plan would threaten child safety and parking access

Jessica Cassell, a bachelor of social work student who said she was speaking on behalf of the University Park ("U Park") family‑housing community, told the Board of Trustees that residents learned by email a plan had been developed to create paid parking near family housing without prior resident consultation.

Cassell said the community has a high concentration of children who "run around family housing" and that the former park manager, who helped coordinate traffic and snow removal, has retired. "Our concern is child safety," she told trustees during the public‑comment period. "We would like to oppose this plan. We are not okay with it." Cassell also described what she said are tight parking resources in the neighborhood: she said each housing unit is assigned one parking spot, five guest spots are shared across several units, and that although the site shows about "47 available" spaces, those spaces were already unavailable to residents under the current management arrangement.

Cassell said residents had asked university staff for details about how paid parking would work, how snow removal would be handled if guest spaces were converted to paid spaces, and what the security plan would be, but she said she had not received answers. "We understand that there's a huge need for parking. We want to help with that, but we just don't want our family housing to be a space for that. Mostly for the safety of the children," she said.

Board chair Trish Riley acknowledged the comment and said the university would follow up; no formal board action or motion on the parking plan was recorded in the meeting minutes.

Ending: Trustees did not respond with a formal decision at the meeting; Cassell told the board she expected university staff to follow up with residents and the board to have the information available in coming weeks.