ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell University President Jeffrey S. Lehman issued the following statement June 8 concerning the parking lot that is under construction as part of the West Campus Residential initiative:

Over the past several weeks I have received many thoughtful messages, and several petitions with as many as 250 signatures, expressing concern about the decision to build a replacement parking lot along University Avenue, as part of the West Campus Residential Initiative. Some clearly oppose the decision; others suggest alternatives; many call for a moratorium.

I endorse the intuition that animates most of these messages: important sustainability values are implicated in almost any decision that our university makes, including the replacement parking lot decision. They should be evaluated seriously, and with care. 

In this case, two kinds of sustainability argument stand out. 

The first focuses on cars, and how they might diminish the local campus experience for pedestrians and exacerbate global concerns about the environment and energy scarcity. More cars could increase those negative impacts. 

However, the decision to move the West Campus parking lot does not increase the number of cars on campus. The old lot included 286 spaces; the new one will include only 176. And if the argument is that we should be sufficiently concerned about cars to reduce total campus parking by an additional 176 spaces, it is not linked to this particular project. It is a claim about campus circulation more generally, and it should continue to be considered on its own terms, with full consideration of the implications for our students, faculty, staff and neighboring communities. In many different discussions, over the past decade, with the city, town and county, we have been asked to provide more, not less, parking on campus.

The second argument, in contrast, is specific to this project. It focuses on how the removal of vegetation that has grown into the area over the past fifty or so years will compromise our environment.

But contrary to what has sometimes been claimed, the vegetation that will be removed along University Avenue does not have great ecological or horticultural significance. The scrub is not indigenous to the site, and eastern redbuds (cercis canadensis) are considered "invasive." We looked into the possibility of transplanting some of the trees to, for example, the Cornell Plantations but were advised by experts that none of the specimens on the proposed site is significant enough to warrant such an action.

The current "wildness" of the proposed location is not historic, or otherwise unusual. The project Web site, http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu, includes photographs of the site from 1903 and the 1930s, along with other helpful information about this and other aspects of the project. And I do not believe we should endorse a more general notion that places on the Cornell campus that have become "wild" should remain undisturbed forever. It seems to me that a commitment to sustainability calls for thoughtful reflection about the impact of individual and collective human activity, and a search for ways to make it environmentally tolerable over the long run, rather than a strict rule.

Why not a moratorium? The proposal to build a replacement parking lot for the five buildings of the West Campus Residential Initiative might appear to be a new issue. But in reality it has been at the center of a longstanding debate. Over the past four years, the proposal has been the subject of countless meetings among planners and decision makers on and off campus. For instance, 18 neighborhood outreach meetings were held with the community stakeholders between April 2001 and December 2002 alone. Furthermore, the Residential Initiative Executive Group has met bimonthly since February 2002 to consider campus and community concerns. 

As a result of these and many more meetings, the project has changed significantly over time. The lot was shifted to preserve the original carriage path that exists on the property, its elevation was raised to provide a more substantial buffer for residences on University Avenue, and the overall footprint was made more compact, which will result in less tree clearing, reduced run-off and ultimately a smaller paved surface. 

Not everyone will be persuaded that this was the right decision. I do hope, however, that even those who disagree will conclude that the decision was made in a thoughtful and responsible manner over an extended period of time, in a manner worthy of a great and humane university that has an appropriate respect for the value of sustainability.