On April 10, a new gate with a gatehouse was put into operation in the Westside Hall parking lot.
There are two gates, one for entering and one for exiting, with the one gatehouse next to it.
The gates will be in the open position Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. For the past few weeks, a night guard has been on duty with the gates up. There will still be a night guard during the night when the gates will be down.
“It cannot hurt having someone there,” Mark DeLieto, Chief of Campus Police, said.
The gates moderate the Westside parking garage for red resident permits (41G) and one of the many green commuter lots (P41).
There is a kiosk on the driver’s side equipped with a camera and a card reader for UNH students to swip their ID. Commuter and resident students, along with faculty and staff are able to access the gate when it’s closed.
The color permits that are allowed to access this parking lot include: red, green, blue, brown, and, during the day, gold/silver permits, while orange and yellow permits are not authorized.
“We try to find the balance between security and convenience,” said Chief DeLieto.
In addition to the gates at Westside, a new parking lot location has been confirmed and will undergo construction before the start of the next school year. It will be a surface lot on Hoffman Street, across from Bergami Hall, holding around 220 spots.
Recent construction for the new Engineering and Science University Magnet School next to Westside Hall and the construction along Campbell Avenue, across from Charger Plaza, are the causes of some lost parking spots.
As part of a new standard, for every new parking lot the university acquires, they will include a gate with card reader, surveillance cameras and a blue light phone.
DeLieto said that they get more reports from cell phones than from blue phones, but they are still useful for the reassurance of having immediate access to assistance.
There is a possibility of more parking lots to pop up or to even disappear for the next school year.
