S pray-painted in black letters against a white wooden back ground, the message on the makeshift sign stuck in front of a house on Cameron Lane could not be clearer.
"HELP STOP UVA GARAGE ON IVY BEFORE IT GETS YOU!"
These types of signs along with emblazoned blue banners appear in the yards of many residents of the Lewis Mountain neighborhood, an area within a stone's throw of the University's proposed parking garage.
On March 12 of this year, the University officially unveiled its plan for a piece of land slated for development down Ivy Road: a 1,180-space, five-story parking garage.
"As soon as people heard about it there was a lot of bewilderment," said Julia Mahoney, former LMNA president and current University law professor.
Although the Board of Visitors approved a design and location for the garage in October 2001, the residents did not find out until March.
"This was sprung on us as a fait-a-complit," said Jim Simmonds, University applied mathematics professor emeritus and LMNA member.
Construction began earlier this month - much to the chagrin of local residents, who fear both a traffic bottleneck at the already congested intersection, as well as the architectural dominance of the garage.
"We tried to contact their neighborhood association in late October or early Novemeber," said Leonard W. Sandridge, University vice president and chief operating officer.
"We regret that we were not more insistent in the fallthat the meeting needed to occur then."
Because of communication snafus, no meetings with the Lewis Mountain residents were held until after the March 12 announcement.
Prior to that, the University had listed the site across from the Cavalier Inn as that of a future residential college.
I think [the University] has been short-sighted and stubborn," said Psychology Prof. Michael Kubovy, who displays a "Stop the UVA 1200 car monster" sign in front of his Lewis Mountain Road home.
Kobovy, along with other Lewis Mountain Neighborhood Association members, is fighting what he perceives as a University-sponsored disaster for both the neighborhood and the Charlottesville community.
Even though Lewis Mountain neighborhood residents began sporadically objecting to the garage soon after the University announced the scale and design of the garage, communication problems between residents and University officials continued - until April 24, when Charlottesville Mayor J. Blake Caravati sent a letter to Sandridge detailing the residents' grievances.
In his June 14 response, University President John T. Casteen III wrote "prior to your letter ... you gave us no reason to understand that any dispute about this project existed."
In addition to the ambiguity surrounding the communication issues, traffic concerns also have been a source of contention between the University and the community.
The University commissioned a traffic study that maintained the average amount of waiting time at the Ivy/Emmet intersection will be 24 seconds.
However, much of the data was taken in the fall - when first years do not have cars - and some of it was even compiled around Thanksgiving, Simmonds said.
The LMNA has hired the consulting firm Wilbur Smith Associates to provide a separate traffic report, which the LMNA expects will critique the findings in the University report, Mahoney said.
Additionally, the new garage would require two stoplights.
"Put up a stop light anywhere and you're asking for trouble," because they slow down the flow of traffic even more, Simmonds said.
"We can walk, but sometimes we need to go shopping," Kubovy said with a laugh.
However, University officials maintain that synchronizing the traffic lights will ease the flow of traffic.
"The University has offered to pay a significant part of that cost," Sandridge said.
The residents insist this incident is not typical of University-community relations.
"We're focused on the substance" of the garage issue, Mahoney said.
However, appealing to the often- disparate needs of an expanding University and a small city is a delicate balancing act for the University.
The problem reflects "a rapidly growing University in the context of a small community," former Charlottesville mayor Bitsy Waters said.
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