It will not be long before student parking may become harder to find after the Torrance City Council implements its permit parking plan in a neighborhood a short walk from campus.

Last week the city council approved permit parking in a 6-0 vote for a handful of residential streets near the corner of Crenshaw and Redondo Beach boulevards, in order to prevent students from parking their cars in spaces that residents claim is needed for their own parking.

“The reason why we want (permit parking) is that a lot of students are disrespectful, we can’t even park on our own streets sometimes,” Caroline Rouser, who lives on 163, street said. “Not all the students are bad, but a few ruin it for everyone.”

Rouser’s neighbors have had the same problems, such as students parking in their driveways or so close that cars could not fit on the street.

One resident within view of Redondo Beach Boulevard pointed to trash on her property, saying it is from students who park in front of her house.

“My daughter comes home at seven and has no place to park near the house and has to park blocks away because there’s no room with students taking night classes,” Chiyoko Yamasita, 82, said.

Students parking in the area now find themselves wondering what they will do when the new rules begin to be enforced, such as Roger Palma, 19, business major.

“Where are we gonna park for free? That sucks We should take them to court,” Palma said.

Salem Duenas, 21, political science major, said that she parks in the neighborhood because it is closer to her classes than parking lots on campus and saves her money.

“If we had to have a time limit I would be okay with it if it meant still being able to park here,” Duenas said

The city council voted on the measure after a parking study was done and residents collected signatures for a petition, Transportation Planning Coordinator Ted Semaan said.

“We did some initial reviews of the neighborhood and found (the parking) was definitely intense,” Semaan said.

“You had single family homes packed with cars from one end of the street to the other,” he said.

“I sympathize with the students, but there’s enough who have made it so bad in the last few years that we had to do something,” Rouser said.

Peerapol Suree, an urban planning assistant for the city of Torrance, said the law should be effective on or about Dec. 23.

This is 30 days after the bill goes through a second reading.

Suree said that enforcement will not begin until Dec. 27 and that the city has hired a contractor to put up signs.

“The signs should definitely be up before the enforcement date,” Suree said.

Parking problems may be eased in the near future when an additional parking structure on campus funded by the Measure E bond is completed.