Updates:
June 15: Community Forum on HMC Facilities Planning (PDF)
May 15: Report on May 12 City Council Meeting
May 5: City Council Meeting on Parking to be Held May 12
April 10: Status of Research on North Campus Property
April 2: Forum on North Campus Property to be Held April 24

May 15, 2009

I am writing with good news to share about the meeting of the Claremont City Council this past Tuesday, May 12. As you will recall from the last announcement from Dean Cave, the council held a special session to consider the recommendations of the city Planning Division staff on changes to ordinances regarding institutional zone parking.

At the meeting, city staff presented recommendations that included the following:

• New requirements for parking that differentiate between residential and non-residential colleges.
• Separate compliance and reporting by each college in the Claremont Colleges consortium.
• Elimination of the requirement that new parking facilities created to address a deficit be located within 800 feet of new buildings.
• A 20 percent reduction in the number of required parking spaces for each academic class that is restricted from having cars on campus The current formula is one space for every two students, faculty and staff members. Additional spaces are required based on auditorium seating capacity at the rate of one space for every five seats.
• Two percent reductions in the number of required parking spaces for each transportation reduction measure implemented t (e.g., rideshare incentive program, ZIP car program, secure bike storage and showering facilities and other transportation demand management measures).

Based on the potential reclassification of Galileo Hall from an auditorium to instructional space after the construction of the new teaching and learning building, the use of several two percent transportation reduction measures and the proposed 20 percent reduction measure discussed above, we believe it may not be necessary to develop parking facilities on the north campus property.

It is important to keep in mind that the regulations still need to be written and approved by the city council. It is our understanding that the revised code will be presented to the Planning Commission in July 2009, and submitted to the City Council in September. If approved, it will be effective 30 days later in October 2009. When students return to campus in the fall, we will begin discussions about the implications of restricting first year students from bringing cars to campus, beginning with the class that enrolls in fall 2010.

Several of the other residential Claremont Colleges are planning to restrict first year students from parking on campus. For example, Pitzer implemented it for the class of 2012, and CMC is implementing it for the class of 2013.

Next Steps
If we are not required to construct a parking lot on our north campus, the city planning process for the teaching building will be different.  We will be working with the city over the next several months on updating our master plan and other related projects.  We are planning to host a public forum in June to have a conversation with the Claremont community in light of possible changes to the parking code which may obviate the need to construct a parking lot on our north property.

I want to thank Bob Cave, Andrew Dorantes and their staff, along with faculty and students who have worked with us on this issue. In particular, I want to thank HMC student Ben Keller '10, student representative to the City Council, for the outstanding work he did over the past few months in bringing the student perspective to the attention of the President's Cabinet and the city.

Maria M. Klawe
President, Harvey Mudd College

May 5, 2009

Greetings,

As many of you know we have begun the planning for a new teaching and learning building on the HMC campus.   Prior to filing application for the City of Claremont’s discretionary approval  to move forward with the building, we are required to address the parking deficit that exists now as well as the deficit that will result after the construction of the buildings included in our revised master plan.  HMC has not applied for a parking reduction because the City’s current parking reductions allowed by the Code may not be sufficient to address the proposed deficit based on the City’s current parking requirements.  Recently the City informed us that they were planning to have a study session, which is open to the public, to discuss various parking requirements, as well as other issues.  Today, we have received a notice from the City with the time and location of the meeting -  May 12, 2009 at 4:00 pm in the City’s Council Chamber.  The Dean of the Faculty, Bob Cave, and I will attend the meeting to present the reasons why we feel more parking at HMC is unnecessary.  It is our hope that the City will modify its parking requirements which will obviate the need for HMC to build a parking lot on the North Campus property.  We welcome members of our community to attend the meeting and express their thoughts and concerns.

Andrew R. Dorantes
Vice President for Administration and Finance/Treasurer

April 10, 2009

Dear HMC Community,

When HMC purchased the North Campus Property we entered into a lease agreement with CUC until May 31, 2009 in order to allow faculty and students from the Consortium to continue research and teaching on the land we owned. That lease will expire next month and it does not appear as if it will be renewed. We originally feared that the lack of a lease would place restrictions on access to the land by non-HMC community members, but in recent weeks we have found out that is not necessarily so. Thus, HMC has agreed to allow biological research and teaching to continue on the land until at such point the property will be developed. We will endeavor to keep the community appraised of dates at which development might occur. In addition, we will not add fencing to the land during this interim time but we will be posting signs that say " Harvey Mudd College - North Campus Property - Right to pass by permission, and subject to control, of owner: Section 1008, Civil Code - Contact (909) 621-8126 with questions regarding this property” in order to demarcate the land.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Bob

Robert J. Cave
Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty
Professor of Chemistry

April 2, 2009

In November 2008, Harvey Mudd College announced plans to purchase 11.46 acres of land on the northeast corner of Foothill Boulevard and College Avenue (map below). The sale of the land was recorded on January 6, 2009.

The southern-most area of the north campus property is being considered for use as a parking area in order to meet City of Claremont requirements for new construction. A public forum on parking and the north campus property will be held Friday, April 24, at 4 p.m., in the Platt Campus Center.

An online discussion forum for students, faculty and staff has been set up where ideas about parking and use of the property are being gathered. You will also find there a discussion forum about the new teaching and learning building.

Here are the instructions for using Sakai to take part in the discussion:

- Sign on to Sakai using your LDAP (e-mail and network access) login at:
https://sakai.claremont.edu:8443/portal/login
- Go to "My Workspace"
- Click on "Membership," then "Joinable Sites"
- Search for "HMC Discussion Forums"
- Click "Join" the "HMC Discussion Forums" (a new tab will be added at the top)
- Click on the new tab "HMC Discussion Forums" to view and participate in the discussion

A video tutorial about joinable sites is available at:
http://www.claremont.edu/doc/sakai/videos.html
The video to watch is "Using My Workspace."