Baguio revives plan for underground parking at Burnham Park
BAGUIO CITY—An old and widely unpopular proposal to elevate the iconic Melvin Jones football field at Burnham Park in this city to make way for a parking lot underneath is back on the table.
The city government has called for investment proposals for several public projects, among them an underground parking facility at the century-old park—a plan first pitched by a developer in 2014.
That year, residents and conservation groups like the Baguio Heritage Foundation Inc. (BHFI) opposed the Melvin Jones proposal over concerns it would disrupt the park’s natural drainage system and negate its role as a carbon sink.
Objecting to other government plans for multilevel parking buildings inside Burnham Park, BHFI’s Dr. Ronaldo Paraan petitioned and secured a certification from the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) declaring Burnham Park a protected historical property, entitling it to a historical marker.
Last week, however, the city government issued a “call for proposals” for five government properties, including the 23,978-square-meter Melvin Jones, for an “elevated football field with underground parking facility” and a “modular parking facility to serve as a central parking hub with smart traffic systems” at the 3,155-sq-m parking lot behind a restaurant.
Another potential parking site is the lot that once hosted the City Auditorium, now used as a parking area for Burnham Park visitors.
“We are waiting for proposed plans. We are looking at the possibility of coming up with a parking basement. It would require lifting the whole field to put up parking spaces and develop a rainwater harvesting facility,” Mayor Benjamin Magalong said during this week’s flag-raising ceremony.
Tapping Tieza
Magalong said the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority (Tieza) had been tapped for Baguio’s plans to use Burnham Park to help increase the city’s parking capacity from 2,700 scattered spaces to an ideal 14,000 to ease daily traffic gridlocks in downtown Baguio.
A transport survey conducted by the Metro Pacific Tollways Corp. found that between 53,000 and 60,000 vehicles pass through Baguio’s streets daily, in addition to some 25,000 tourists and business visitors present in the city at any given time.
Camp John Hay has committed a parking area for over 1,000 vehicles, Magalong said.
Victory Liner is also offering part of its current bus depot for public parking under a public-private partnership proposal to build a common bus terminal along Marcos Highway.
Plans for Burnham Park, Magalong said, would be coordinated with the NHCP to ensure the “Burnham Plan” is preserved. The city’s cultural mapping program also identifies Burnham Park as a protected site.
“We did not come up with these options without studying the technical parameters and its impact on the park,” Magalong stressed, noting that strategic parking buildings are part of a smart mobility system that promotes mass transport over private vehicles in the central business district.
Online critics have begun attacking the latest parking proposals, but Magalong said he would welcome suggestions from them to help solve the city’s worsening traffic woes.
