Bunker Hill CC is advised to prepare for loss of parking
City planning officials say there are no plans to take back more than 250,000 square feet of parking lots at Bunker Hill Community College for further development, but a study warns the college needs to prepare “immediately” for a future without them.
The Boston Planning & Development Agency owns the two lots, which are each about 130,000 square feet, but they have long been used by Bunker Hill for 618 student parking spaces.
BPDA officials are looking to officially lease the lots to the community college for the first time at their meeting tonight, with BPDA to receive half the school’s parking permit income during a lease of one year.
“BHCC acknowledges this is a temporary license and their occupancy is only for a limited interim use,” the lease reads in part.
BPDA officials urged college and state officials to study the school’s parking needs before creating the lease, according to BPDA documents. That study — by architects Nelson Nygaard — said the reasons for analyzing parking are the nearly doubling of the student population over the past 10 years and potential development of the lots.
The study states Bunker Hill should start planning for the “loss of this parking supply ... immediately.”
BPDA spokeswoman Bonnie Franklin said the city had nothing concrete in the works.
“There are no plans for development on this site at this time,” Franklin said in a statement. “The purpose of the license agreement is to formalize the relationship between BHCC and the BPDA in order to allow the BPDA to collect revenue from this site.”
Bunker Hill spokeswoman Karen Norton said the school was focused on providing parking for the coming academic year, but would be open to considering changes.