Greenbrier residents are going to be the only ones able to park on their road starting in several weeks.

City Council discussed parking changes during its meeting Monday night. An ordinance for Greenbrier will prohibit parking on the north side of the road and implement parking passes for the residents of Greenbrier Road, which will ease access for fire and police when responding to calls. Similar parking configurations have been enforced on Kimberly and Edgebrook drives in the past.

The Greenbrier parking changes won’t go into effect until the residents are notified and the logistics are worked out, which could be two to three weeks, DeKalb Police Chief Gene Lowery said. During Homecoming weekend, all parking on Greenbrier was prohibited because the street is a high-traffic area.

City Council approved alternate-side parking for John Street, which also created an emergency snow route, as opposed to the stricter rules decided for Greenbrier.

“John Street’s not the high-crime area that Greenbrier’s been,” Lowery said. “Since January of this year until now, we’ve had almost 600 calls of service in a two-block radius of that area.”

A lot of times it’s visitors who create the parking issues, which sometimes ends in students being the victims, Lowery said.

“We implemented some changes on Kimberly and Edgebrook Drives that seem to have a dramatic effect on criminal activity,” Lowery said. “What we’re trying to do in this situation is model that same behavior on Greenbrier.”

First Ward Alderman David Jacobson said he hopes the changes to Greenbrier’s parking will follow the success of Edgebrook and Kimberly Drives. Greenbrier falls within his ward.

Jacobson suggested the Greenbrier resident parking passes as an amendment to the ordinance. The ordinance as it was originally written just called for one-sided parking with snow route designation and towing enforcement.

The parking passes will ensure that what parking is available on Greenbrier will be dedicated to residents so they will not have to park in other public lots and create a safety concern. Jacobson said he was concerned about residents parking on other areas and walking in the dark back to their homes before Monday’s change.

Second Ward Alderman Bill Finucane asked how residency would be determined to ensure the resident parking passes would be used only by Greenbrier residents.

“We’d be prepared to ask for some type of copy of a lease or some other written document like a utility bill,” Lowery said.

Currently, Greenbrier parking availability varies during the week: Each side of the road alternates on which day is the allowed parking day. This situation has not proven successful for Greenbrier but could work well on John Street, Lowery said.

Because Greenbrier is a high-traffic area with many student residents, its alternate-side parking often gets confusing, which makes it hard for ticketing purposes, Lowery said.

“Everybody wants more parking, but everyone has a safety concern, which has been placed above everything else,” Lowery said. “It’s almost never a student issue, it’s a non-student issue.”

Lowery and Jacobson have high hopes the parking changes will be received with positive attitudes.

“I’ve spoken to the [NIU Interfraternity Council] president, the SA president and the SA speaker, and all three of them were very supportive when I mentioned it to them,” Jacobson said. “The city got the added safety benefits and the residents got to keep and guarantee their own parking abilities.”