�It was essential to recognize the needs of local residents for dedicated parking areas.� �Mayor Tom Barrett

The city of Milwaukees Residential Preferred Parking (RPP) plan will be implemented over the summer instead of during this semester.

Milwaukee 3rd District Ald. Michael DAmatos plans to save parking spaces for East Side residents and restrict commuter parking spaces for University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee students will now take into effect Aug. 1.

A committee had been debating putting RPP into effect sometime in the middle of the semester. After a tentative timeline of April 1 came and went without any word from the city, it was announced that it would not be enacted during the middle of the semester.

Kyle Duerstein, director of legislative affairs for the Student Association at UWM, said that he considers the new date a victory for UWM students.

Imagine parking somewhere on a Friday and coming back to school on a Monday and finding out you cant park there anymore, Duerstein said. We wanted to get the date pushed back so that it didnt happen in the middle of the semester.

After Aug. 1, anyone parking in the designated RPP zones without a resident sticker may be subject to a fine or towing. The streets designated as RPP zones are shown in red on the map.

Murray Hill Neighborhood Association President Gerard Capell said that RPP is a good compromise between the university and the neighborhood.

I think it was a great fit to residents of the university and neighbors not so much in the actual reality in providing new parking spots, but for the scale of saying no we can work together.

RPP was proposed by DAmato and passed by the Milwaukee Common Council before being signed into law by Mayor Tom Barrett on Dec. 20, 2006.

It was essential to recognize the needs of local residents for dedicated parking areas, Barrett said in January.

It is estimated that 721 parking spaces will be part of the RPP zone.

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