Friday's MSU Board of Trustees meeting could result in the approval of a new parking lot in protected campus green space.
At the meeting, the first this semester, the trustees will discuss the possibility of straying from an MSU zoning ordinance that prohibits development in specific green areas on campus by constructing a 20-space parking lot at the Clarence E. Lewis Landscape Arboretum at the corner of Service Road and Bogue Street.
The lot would be used to provide easier access to the arboretum for the public.
"I want to look at the footprint of this," Trustee Dee Cook said. "I don't want to see everything asphalt and concrete."
A board action is needed for the lot because it would be located in an area protected by ordinances detailed in MSU's 2020 Vision plan, a series of recommendations designed to outline campus development until the year 2020.
If approved, it would be the second exception to the ordinances since the 2020 Vision master plan was approved by the board in 2001, said Jeff Kacos, director of Campus Planning and Administration.
"There are going to be exceptions to the ordinance, because the plan couldn't anticipate any unusual exceptions that come along," Kacos said. "By and large, these are things that we wouldn't expect to be coming up very often."
The lot was proposed in an effort to make the arboretum more "user-friendly," said Bob Schutzki, an associate professor of horticulture who coordinates development at the arboretum.
Because of the arboretum's location, no good options for nearby parking were available, he said.
Other plans to make the arboretum more accessible to the public without adding a lot, such as installing a crosswalk on Bogue Street, were denied or deemed not cost effective.
"We've exhausted the other options," Schutzki said.
But Cook added that if an exception to the ordinance is granted, it won't be done lightly.
"These variances don't come without a lot of yin and yang, a lot of discussion and a lot of questions about why the variance is necessary," she said.
