University Plaza Apartments’ new parking policy, which allows students to buy parking passes for individual spaces, had many residents frustrated before the first space was assigned.

Parking passes were sold on a first-come, first-served basis on Sunday, Aug. 28. UP held a lottery beginning at 11 a.m. that day for residents to purchase a $150 annual parking passes and receive a numbered spot.

Bradleigh Margulies, a senior majoring in marketing, said at 6 a.m. that day a line began forming for the passes.

Margulies said she and her friends waited in the rain from 6 to 8 a.m. until someone from the UP office let them into the Leasing Office Clubhouse to wait inside.

“Part of the reason why I got there so early was I know how important a good spot is during the winter, or when carrying groceries,” Margulies said. “I didn’t want to be in the back where there is flooding and falling rocks. Even though we were standing outside in Hurricane Irene soaking wet, I knew that it was worth it for me to get there to secure that spot for the year.”

UP’s new parking system was created in response to a student petition circulated last semester.

Ashley Lewis, a senior in the Watson School of Engineering, said UP’s management has not been actively monitoring the parking space allocation. She said she has complained twice to UP employees about someone parking in her space.

“They didn’t do anything, they just gave me a temporary parking pass and told me to park in another spot,” Lewis said. “Because they don’t enforce the rules, people park wherever they want.”

Alyssa Santavicca, a senior majoring in psychology, voiced similar concerns.

“I end class every day by 2 p.m. and every time I come back, someone is in my spot,” Santavicca said. “I’ve gone to the office numerous times complaining that there was a car parked in my spot in which they told me over and over that it’s not something that they have control over.”

Santavicca said she was frustrated that UP is not upholding its end of the deal.

“I paid $150 to have that designated spot be mine and then UP is telling me it’s out of their control,” Santavicca said. “If they can’t enforce towing regardless of who is parked in your spot then everyone should get their money back and the spots should go back to the old way of them being on a first-come, first-served basis.”

According to Roy Confer, manager of the HSBC located in UP, parking enforcement for the apartment complex is handled by the owner of Newman Development, although businesses within UP have varying parking policies.

Angela Callahan, general manager at Planet Fitness, a gym located at UP, said cars have been towed from the club’s reserved spaces in as little as five minutes.

“Even if [a client] who’s parked in our spot leaves the club to get something to eat, they can’t do that,” Callahan said. “We have towed for that.”

UP residents have said UP management told them that cars would be towed only after they remained in improper spaces for 24 hours or more.

A spokesperson for Newman Development declined to comment on the topic.

Laura Gifford, a senior majoring in philosophy, politics and law, said UP has done nothing to inform plaza guests as to which spaces are reserved for residents.

“There aren’t any signs that say these spots are for UP [residents]. All [the spaces] have is numbers, so somebody who wants to eat at Tully’s won’t know they’re parked in somebody’s spot,” Gifford said.

Gifford said she thinks isolated incidents of improperly parked cars quickly lead to more complicated problems.

“I know people who had somebody park in their spot, so they parked in somebody else’s spot, and then it becomes like a chain reaction where nobody is parking in the right spot,” Gifford said.

Gifford claimed that current parking practices violate the lease agreement between UP residents and Ambling Student Living, the company contracted by Newman Group to manage the apartment buildings at UP.

The residents’ lease states “designated parking areas are those that display white logos.”

Gifford argued that because UP changed the logos to numbered spaces, the lease is no longer representative of the current parking system.

“I just want the parking system in the lease to be the parking system I paid for,” she said.

Residents said they are concerned about how UP’s management will handle its parking policy in future semesters.

“If my friend is a junior and she already has a spot for this year and will be living in UP next year, will she have to go through the lottery process again or does she have the right to reclaim her spot?” Margulies asked.

Numerous calls to employees of Ambling Student Living for this story were not returned.