Moscow City Council reviewed survey results Monday concerning the placement of public and private universities and colleges in Moscow’s central business zoning district — which consists of primarily downtown.
After review, Moscow City Council voted unanimously to direct the survey results to the Planning and Zoning Commission, advising the commission to consider and prepare an ordinance that would disallow the addition of colleges and universities in the central business district, in response to the findings of the survey.
Results from the survey demonstrated a general disapproval by property and business owners and community members of colleges and universities within the central business district.
During the zoning code update that was approved by the Council May 2018, the council raised questions regarding the allowance of colleges and universities within the central business district, according to Monday’s city council agenda. The agenda notes in August 2018, the council provided direction to city staff to develop a survey to gauge perceptions of current and additional or expanded universities and colleges within the district.
After approval by the council, the survey was sent out in the fall of 2018 to property and business owners within the central business zoning district as well as a random sample of the community.
“One of the things I thought was interesting was the close similarity between the general citizen responses and the downtown business communities,” said Brandy Sullivan, a councilmember.
Just over 60% of general residents marked in the survey that they either “strongly agree” or “agree” that additional public and private colleges and universities should not be allowed within the central business district. When asked the same question, about 60% of business owners marked that they agreed.
According to survey results, almost 50% of both resident respondents and business owners view the current colleges in downtown Moscow as a negative feature with roughly 36% of general residents and 42% of business owners viewing them as a positive feature.
This question allowed respondents to list comments of positive and negative features about the current colleges in downtown Moscow.
For both residents and business owners, the top three mentioned negative categories were parking and traffic, New Saint Andrews College and Christ Church and loss of tax revenue.
Both residents and business owners mentioned most commonly economic growth downtown and more people and students as positive aspects of having colleges and universities in the district.
“I think this survey provides us a lot of information we need to build action plans and further decisions with because before we were just shooting from the hip anecdotally about what the community wanted or they didn’t want,” said Art Bettge, a councilmember. “I think this really fills the gap effectively in the level of our knowledge related to the perception of colleges and universities in the central business district.”
Jordan Willson can be reached at [email protected]