For several years, the meeting has had an agreement that allowed us to park cars in the lot adjacent to our property. With the recent sale of that property, we anticipate losing access to that parking lot soon. Therefore we have formed a Parking Committee which has been tasked with investigating other options for parking. Please be in touch with the ad-hoc parking committee with any questions or thoughts specifically related to the proposed plan (Chiyo Moriuchi, Peter Vari, Mark Silverman and Bill Heinemann). Information about this committee’s work, the options considered, and actions taken are included here.
During the parking committee’s presentations to meeting for business, the following desired goals/outcomes have been expressed by members. As the meeting continues to discern the appropriate solution, these goals will need to be balanced and prioritized.
- Reducing carbon footprint
- Maintaining and growing the Meeting community
- Preserving the beauty of the Meetinghouse setting
- Minimizing cost to the Meeting
- Respecting the neighborhood and the Borough
- Supporting Friends with limited mobility, small children, or other challenges
- Developing an overall site plan that honors creation and strengthens community
In the July 12, 2020 Meeting for Business, the Meeting APPROVED of completing an engineering plan for construction of on-premises parking and submitting the plan to the Borough for approval. The meeting will then need to consider separately what actions to actually take to secure additional parking.
The following two diagrams from the engineering plans show:
- The currently existing conditions on the Meeting House property
- Final Engineering plan for construction of parking — Version dated January 21, 2021
- EngineeringPlans-Parking-FINAL.pdf
- For comparison, here is the plan prior to shifting west parking lot EngineeringPlans-Parking-20210412.pdf
- ,Location of new trees to be planted, shown with bolder outline with two letter code indicating species
- Draft plan for placement of lighting fixtures. Diagram shows location and beam pattern. — Version dated January 21, 2021
- Artist renderings of the proposed expansions including mature trees and shrubs
Answers to outstanding questions
A Request for Proposals (RFP) has been sent to local Universities soliciting landscape designs for our property. The RFP requests designs that incorporate the engineering plans for the parking lots.
The following document was prepared for the December 20, 2020 Threshing Session. This document provides important background and context to the options that the sub-committee has investigated to date.
On February 28, 2021 we held a Listening Session to collect everyone’s thoughts and concerns at that time. Here is a summary from that session.
On March 24, 2021 we distributed a questionnaire to gather facts and opinions about travel to and from the Meeting. Here is a summary report of the results and a more detailed report of the data.
On April 3, 2021 we held a Placemaking exercise on the Meeting grounds. Here is collection of responses we received.