PROVO — The Provo City Council has given preliminary approval to Brigham Young University's proposal to build a new housing on 800 North, but council members warned the school to address a perceived lack of parking.
The project — called BYU Housing on 8th North by university planners — would include 754 beds.
Neighbors don't believe the plans for 401 parking stalls are sufficient and city code requires 1.1 parking stalls per bed. BYU has proposed .53 stalls per bed.
Kurt Peterson, who lives in the area where the complex will be built, asked the City Council to force BYU to build a parking garage next to the site or restrict the number of students in the complex allowed to own cars.
One resident suggested BYU charge students $20-30 a month for a parking stall at the complex.
"This is a beautiful project," Peterson said. "We want to see it happen, but we need restrictions on students or a parking structure to address their needs."
BYU provided data that the complex would have more stalls per bed than the university's other on-campus apartment complexes for single students — Deseret Towers, Heritage Halls and Helaman Halls — which are never fully used.
The Heritage Halls lot is 96 percent full overnight, Helaman Halls is 75 percent and Deseret Towers 60 percent, said Warren Jones, director of facility planning.
Still, Jones said, "If the parking is not adequate, we will certainly reconsider that."
The council voted 7-0 late Tuesday night to move ahead with the project and prepare to submit an application for final approval, but several council members still cautioned BYU administrators about the parking issue.
"I do think this is a very good project and well-placed," said Cynthia Dayton, council chairwoman. "If the parking concerns are addressed, it will be a beautiful addition to Provo."
The planning commission and the city's design and review and land-use committees had approved the plan, but the meeting was the first look at the project for most of the council members.
BYU has proposed four five-story buildings on the block between 400 and 500 East. The buildings would be made of red brick with high-pitched roofs.
The complex would displace the Ezra Taft Benson Agricultural and Food Institute, a parking lot, a U.S. Forest Service lab and the official BYU weather station.
The university will move each to a different location, Jones said.
The first level of the new complex would have room for 169 parking stalls as well as 141 bicycles and 56 motorcycles. The block to the east would be dedicated to 232 parking stalls.
The plan calls for 105 timed visitor parking stalls on the street.
Another parking lot two blocks west of the complex would have room for overflow parking, but Peterson and other neighbors don't believe students will want to walk that far.
BYU Housing on 8th North is part of a university master plan to renovate or replace the aging Deseret Towers and Heritage Halls. Students displaced by the renovation or rebuilding would live at the 800 North site.
The university is nearing completion on its renovation of the Helaman Halls complex.
Although the 800 North complex would be across the street from what is traditionally considered the southern edge of campus, BYU officials said they would consider the project to be part of on-campus housing.
City officials view the project as the start of what they hope is a 25-year conversion to more walkable communities for students in the Joaquin neighborhood south of campus.
BYU is moving ahead with the proposal although it hasn't been approved by the university's Board of Trustees, said Julie Franklin, BYU's director of residence life.
"We're not sure if they will approve it or if they do when it would begin," she said. "There is no timetable."
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com