TROY -- The city has three prime candidates for residential parking permits.

Beman Park, Hillside and the city's downtown are areas where students live off-campus and full-time residents could benefit from a parking permit system, according to Councilman Bill Dunne, chairman of the Public Safety Committee.

"I don't want to penalize them (the students), but this is one of things we can do to improve the residents' quality of life," Dunne said Tuesday.

Parking has taken on a new emphasis in Troy this year with the installation of parking meters throughout the downtown business district and tougher enforcement of regulations on streets without meters.

Beman Park and Hillside are popular places for students, mostly from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, to live off-campus, but neighbors have complained in the past about students taking up on-street parking spaces.

Meanwhile, concerns have been expressed about residents being ticketed for parking more than two hours on city streets in the downtown area that is the off-campus home to many Russell Sage College and RPI students.

Parking is usually limited to two hours. City parking officers patrol by car and foot to enforce the rules both on the metered streets, where the cost is generally 25 cents for every 15 minutes, and the free two-hour limit.

"We want to look out for people who are full-time residents of the city of Troy," Dunne said.

The city will have to obtain the state Legislature's approval through a home-rule measure to establish residential parking permit districts.

Albany recently won the state Legislature's support for parking permits downtown. The city of Rensselaer already has a parking permit system for residents in the vicinity of the railroad station.

Dunne, who begun soliciting responses from residents on parking, anticipates Public Safety Committee hearings on the parking permits beginning in September after RPI and Sage students return for the fall semester.

Kenneth C. Crowe II can be reached at 454-5084 or kcrowe@timesunion.com.