Saturday, August 23, 2014
By Collin Binkley
Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS
When Ohio State University leased its parking operation in 2012, the private company that took control promised not to increase parking-permit costs by more than 5.5 percent this year. But some faculty members now must pay 50 percent more for the same privileges they had last year.
CampusParc, the company in charge now, says it avoided the rate limit by creating a new parking permit, even though it’s identical to another one offered last year at a lower price.
University officials supported the change.
“Each year, the university and CampusParc discuss possible changes to the permit system,” Dan Hedman, a spokesman for the OSU Office of Administration and Planning, said in an email. “The university reserves the right to deny any changes if they do not best serve our evolving parking needs.”
Faculty members could buy a WA permit last year for $207, allowing them to park on West Campus surface lots and, in the evening, in campus garages. But CampusParc stripped garage access from that permit this year and created a new WAE pass with only one extra benefit: that same garage access.
The WAE pass costs $316 a year.
CampusParc officials said they created the pass to match a similar permit for students that costs $300 this year, the same as it cost last year.
“The past rate schedule required students to pay significantly more than faculty and administrative staff for the same parking privileges,” David Hoover, a spokesman for CampusParc, wrote in an email.
Last year, 1,800 faculty members or administrators bought WA permits, which grant access to lots along Kenny Road and in the Carmack Lot near the border of campus and Upper Arlington. Hoover said the company has not tallied how many permits it has issued for the coming school year.
Hoover said that 299 OSU workers used the WA pass to park in a garage 10 times or more last year. “It is unlikely that any of these 299 customers, which represent only 0.7 percent of all permit customers, are happy about paying more for the garage access, although we do not have specific record of how many may have voiced their concerns,” he said.
The faculty representative on the Parking Advisory Committee at Ohio State, which includes faculty, staff and students, did not return calls seeking comment this week.
Most of the 18 types of permits to park at Ohio State increased in price this year by the maximum 5.5 percent allowed under the lease between CampusParc and Ohio State. Annual prices now range from a $22 motorcycle permit to an $841 A pass that gives faculty broad parking benefits.
The new faculty permit won’t generate any new revenue, Hoover said, because CampusParc kept the equivalent student price the same.
Ohio State agreed to turn over daily parking operations in a 50-year, $483 million lease with CampusParc, which is the business arm of QIC Global Infrastructure and its partner in the deal, LAZ Parking. Critics early on said the deal made bad business sense because Ohio State was giving up its parking revenue. Others have complained about long lines in garages and poor customer service.
But university leaders said the move allowed them to offer more students scholarships and boosted a long-term plan to hire 500 professors during the next decade.
Hedman would not say if anything stops CampusParc from creating other new, costlier permits in the future. The lease caps increases of existing permits at 5.5 percent for the first decade. After that, rates can increase by 4 percent or the change in the Midwest Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher.
“In this instance, the WAE is considered a new parking offering, and it was determined collaboratively that it is properly priced to ensure that students and staff pay the same for similar privileges,” Hedman said in an email. He added that Ohio State “will continue to work with CampusParc to identify and review appropriate changes to our parking system as they are needed.”