New Bush Library’s Neighbors Are Already Complaining About Bus Exhaust

Neighbors of the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University are already griping about it—even though designs for the $300-million facility have yet to be released and no start date for construction has been announced.

So what’s worrying the neighbors? Parking.

Specifically, they’re concerned about a site plan that places a parking garage right across an alley from neighborhood backyards, The Dallas Morning News reports. “That parking garage is going to be 35 feet from my house,” said Tom Bowen, a resident whose property is on the other side of the alley. He complained that “their plan right now isn’t even to have a wall” between the garage and the neighborhood.

Another resident, Sheri Kopidlansky, said she was concerned about idling school buses. “We’re going to be breathing in those exhaust fumes because that’s practically in our backyard,” she told the News.

Representatives of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation met with their new neighbors this month and got an earful about the parking arrangements, particularly about why the site plan calls for putting it near neighborhood homes instead of elsewhere on the 32-acre tract. “We don’t know why they won’t put the parking on the south side or seem so adamant that that’s not a good idea,” said another resident, Robert Moore.

Mark Langdale, the foundation president, said he wanted “to be responsive to their concerns,” but he made no promises. Meanwhile, another News article reports that the size of the complex has grown to more than 200,000 square feet, which the newspaper notes is more than twice the size of George H.W. Bush’s library at Texas A&M University. The Southern Methodist facility will house both a museum, which will be operated by the National Park Service, and a public-policy institute, which the foundation will oversee.