Local elected officials are praising a move by the National Capital Planning Commission, which on Thursday recommended against National Institutes of Health’s plan to add more parking to the Bethesda campus.
The commission, which reviews federal planning projects, did not approve NIH’s 20-year master plan due to the parking proposal. The commission found that NIH’s plan to build additional parking on the campus doesn’t comply with the commission’s 2004 Comprehensive Plan, which sets guidelines for development based on environmental goals.
The commission said the 1,000 new parking spaces pitched in NIH’s master plan would mean the center would exceed the one spot per three employees parking ratio goal set forth in the Comprehensive Plan’s guidelines.
NIH is not forced to comply with the recommendation, however the commission wrote it’s “unlikely to approve any future roadway, entrance, or parking projects until the NIH Campus fully complies with the 2004 Comprehensive Plan…”
Stephen Staudigl, a spokesman for the commission, wrote in an email, “NCPC’s authority for projects outside of Washington D.C. is advisory. However, it is rare for federal agencies not to follow NCPC’s advice.”
Parking at the center is a sensitive issue—local officials last month said that vehicles using the additional parking at the research facility would exacerbate an already severely congested Rockville Pike in Bethesda.
On Thursday, those same officials—U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, state Sen. Susan Lee and state Dels. Bill Frick, Ariana Kelly and Marc Korman, all representing the Bethesda area in District 16, and Montgomery County Councilmember Roger Berliner—said in a statement they were pleased by the recommendation.
“We hope that NIH and [the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services] will take seriously the recommendation of [the commission] that they do more to reduce parking and reduce congestion at the NIH site,” the officials wrote. “A 1-3 parking-to-employee ratio could take up to 3,300 cars off our congested roads.”
The new parking spots would give the center, which already has an estimated 10,000 parking spaces for its approximately 20,000 employees, a parking ratio of one spot per 2.4 employees. The NIH master plan calls for consolidating other NIH facilities in the area at the Bethesda campus, which would result in an estimated 3,000 more employees at the center, hence the plan to add new parking.
“NIH has not successfully demonstrated that the campus is unable to comply with the 1-3 long-term goal [ratio] based on the submitted Transportation Management Plan materials,” the commission wrote in its recommendation.
NIH issued a statement last month saying it is working with employees to reduce the amount of cars parked on the campus, but that many of its employees live and travel from areas that have few public transportation options.
NIH declined Thursday to comment on the commission’s ruling.
