In an effort to alleviate student complaints about limited parking spaces on the Binghamton University campus and prepare for the influx of students in the coming years, a new parking lot will be added by the start of the fall 2017 semester.

Brian Favela was hired by the University last spring as the new director of transportation and parking services. In a survey he conducted, 67 percent of the 665 students reached out and said they were unhappy with parking conditions.

Spencer Gordon, a senior majoring in accounting, voiced this frustration and said that he has been forced to park in paid lots due to a lack of available spaces.

“I’ve heard of numerous individuals having to pay for parking in one of the pay lots because M Lot is constantly full to capacity,” Gordon said. “I have done the same and the frustration is killing me — I paid $140 at the beginning of the year — we should be getting spots.”

Two weeks ago, the plans for the new parking lot were finalized. It will be located on the west side of Glenn G. Bartle Drive, between the information booth and the lacrosse field. According to Favela, the addition of the lot, which will provide 200 additional parking spots, will also account for growth of the University in the future.

“There’s a lot of good things that are going to come out of this lot and I think everyone is very excited about it,” Favela said. “I appreciate everyone providing feedback, and I just want people to know that it’s not just a Band-Aid, it could be a good fix for the next five years.”

The tentative plans have an entrance to the new lot located directly after the information booth at the entrance to campus, and another entrance and exit positioned across from the Science IV building.

Favela has worked on the project along with the senior officers group, composed of BU President Harvey Stenger, the BU Council and the heads of divisions. Their goal is to ultimately increase the number of additional parking spots to 400. This could be achieved by creating another parking lot, but in the immediate future lots ZZ North and South are being cleared of state-owned vehicles.

“Looking at all of the options we put on the table led us to the decision that 400 parking spots was the optimal number for new spaces,” Stenger said. “We’ve reached the peak capacity of our undergraduate student population here, and our numbers will also go down as larger enrollments move to the Johnson City campus.”

In addition, efforts are underway to increase parking options in Downtown Binghamton. The University has signed a memorandum of understanding with Holiday Inn which allows the hotel to use the University Downtown Center’s (UDC) parking on weekends, and in return students can park in the hotel lot during weekdays. An agreement with NYSEG Stadium, home of the Binghamton Rumble Ponies, will also allow students to park there with shuttle service to the UDC.

Nicholas Ferrara, the president of the Student Association and a senior majoring in political science, said he understands that the bureaucracy of implementing infrastructure can be complicated, but it was important the University found a way to alleviate the parking problem.

“Parking is a serious issue on campus and I am glad the University is addressing the problem,” Ferrara said. “University staff work hard to solicit student feedback but they are constrained by inevitable budgetary realities. I am both surprised and happy they were able to spare enough money for the new parking lot.”

In finding a location for the new parking lot, many things were taken into consideration, including environmental factors. Carl Lipo, a professor of anthropology and the chair of the committee on the University environment, said that storm water will be able to flow off of the new parking lot into a wetland, creating a natural habitat for wildlife.

“By integrating the new parking lot with an expanded wetlands in the area we will not only have a green parking lot, but we will vastly upgrade our storm water treatment and created new habitat for local species,” Lipo wrote in an email. “This new facility will showcase the innovative ways in which Binghamton University is incorporating green thinking in to the way which we live our lives and shape our futures.”

Since coming to the University, Favela has maintained the idea that there are enough parking spaces, but they are too far away and people don’t like to have to walk far.

“We’re putting parking where people want it to be, closer to their building,” Favela said. “We still have a walking problem. People don’t want to walk, and parking is not where they want it. Hopefully this solves for that equation a little bit.”