There may not exactly be peace on Earth, but in a little corner of it at the intersection of Golf Road and Rockefeller Avenue in Brookfield, it’s a bit calmer now that the village of Brookfield and Riverside-Brookfield High School have agreed to settle a lawsuit over a parking lot.
The deal is essentially the one proposed by Brookfield in October, with both sides tweaking final numbers to get to 153 total parking spaces between a new lot and the one that already exists on Rockefeller Avenue.
While there are some in the Hollywood neighborhood who would have preferred no expansion of parking at RBHS, this solution appears to be a reasonable one. It won’t solve but will help with the parking headaches that plague anyone who visits the high school for an athletic or any large event.
And with a reconfiguration of the tennis courts there will be a barrier between the neighborhood and the parking lot itself.
In the end, all sides have gotten something. The residents of the neighborhood have gotten a much-reduced parking lot; the high school has eased its parking crunch and has secured a virtually no-cost, long-term lease for the spots on Rockefeller Avenue; and the village has responded to the concerns of residents of the area while ultimately acknowledging the parking problem that Riverside-Brookfield High School contends with daily.
The high school’s tennis program, the collateral damage during this fight, can now leave the purgatory it’s been in for the past two years and enjoy a brand-new facility as a result.
Finally, the high school will make good on its promise take the locks off the gates at the stadium and open the athletic facilities to the public once construction is complete.
