Missing Parking Lot on Campus: No Money or No Responsibility?




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  • 2016-12-05 11:29:43
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Driving around campus for 20 minutes every Sunday in an attempt to find any parking space for your car? Well, you are certainly not the only one. More and more AUBG students are struggling with parking on the territory of the campus. AUBG Daily did an investigation in order to find the roots of the problem and its probable resolve. [caption id="attachment_34072" align="aligncenter" width="662"]img_4550 People continuously parking in front of Scaptopara 1 and Scaptopara2 (Credit Dimitar Bratovanov)[/caption] Since the beginning of the fall semester, there have been a lot of complaints from students who are travelling to AUBG every week by car and are facing the insufficiency of parking space around the campus. “The number of AUBG students is absolutely disproportionate to the parking places provided on campus. It is obvious that this fact is causing a problem,” said Antoniya Georgieva, a student traveling every weekend to Sofia. Apart from the students who are racing to capture a parking space, there are other Blagoevgrad citizens who join the competition as well. As there are a lot of restaurants and other public buildings around campus, many local people take the parking places provided for students, having no clue of the problem they are causing.
[caption id="attachment_34071" align="aligncenter" width="666"]img_4545 The unfinished parking lot next to the Student center is full as usual (Credit Dimitar Bratovanov)[/caption] “Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about the improvement of the situation,” the director of Facilities Office Diplom Ingenieur Lyudmila Dzakova stated. “We have been facing this problem for quite a long time. However, as more and more new buildings are being built around campus without the provision of any municipal car park, I expect deepening of the issue.”
So, what could be done? A common opinion among AUBG students is that “a new parking lot is definitely needed”. At this point an unfinished case comes forth.   On Oct.1 the construction of the new sports facilities was finished and the outdoor courts were opened. Yet, one big detail seemed to be forgotten. [caption id="attachment_34064" align="aligncenter" width="570"]untitled-1 The initial plan for the sports facilities project - a parking lot included in the design (source: Official AUBG website)[/caption] As the plan above clearly shows, a big parking lot was intended to be a part of the initial project. The accomplishment of this goal is still not a fact, though. The reason, behind it is that there is no consensus between the municipality of Blagoevgrad and AUBG administration about whose responsibility is the construction of the parking lot. On the one hand, according to municipal officials “the whole land on which the sports facilities and the intended parking lot are located is municipality’s property but AUBG has a building permission applying to it”. Following this thought, AUBG is assuredly responsible for building the parking lot. On the other hand, documents show something different. [caption id="attachment_34065" align="aligncenter" width="646"]15310374_1791941301065333_1706870700_n The scheme and the contract between AUBG administration and Blagoevgrad municipality concerning the sports facilities project and the parking lot next to it (provided by Engineer Lyudmila Dzakova)[/caption] This scheme, provided by Dzakova, displays the piece of land which the project, maintained by AUBG, refers to (the red line encloses the land for which AUBG has a building permission). The latter reveals that the parking lot is absolutely out of the university’s responsibilities.
“The parking lot is part of the infrastructural design of Svoboda Bachvarova Street to provide the best spatial and technical solution to the overall vision of this part of the campus. As the parking is municipal property, the Blagoevgrad municipality is to provide budget for its construction in its investment program,“ stated Dzakova. 
Alexander Aleksandrov, Vice President for Finance and Administration Office at AUBG, also expressed his opinion on the matter, “The parking lot is not a part of the land that we control and at some point when pressure is such that students ask us to build it, we’ll  probably do it but I prefer the municipality to do their job – otherwise it will be our money.“ [caption id="attachment_34100" align="aligncenter" width="591"]img_6147 The current state of the intended parking lot (Dimitar Bratovanov for AUBG Daily)[/caption] The case is currently stagnant. Neither the AUBG administration, nor the municipal officials know when the parking lot will be constructed. Ideally, the two instances should work together so that the needed budget is provided. For now, those students who have cars should take a deep breath because the race for parking space continues.