Here in Brick City, residents on our block need a parking permit – which I wholly appreciate. The streets that bookend ours are metered parking {which is free on weekends and after 4pm & where the Family Team parks when they come visit}. But our glorious street is by permit only.

And they mean it! My parents came to our home inspection with us and parked out there. They got 2 {yes TWO} tickets between 4pm – 5pm. Two ~ as in ~ one stacked on top of the other. Is that even legal?!

All summer long we’ve been parking around the corner at the meters. Friday I finally got our parking permit.

{sorry interwebs, you can’t have our real street name or permit number. hope we can still be friends}

It’s a glorious feeling parking in front of your own house and knowing you won’t get a ticket.

{Unless of course you forget that there’s alternate side parking EVERY day from 12am-6am. I can already foresee forgetting to move the car everyday.}

Some tips for fellow Newark residents:

1. You need several pieces of documentation before they’ll give you the permit. All of the required documents are listed on the parking permit application, which you can print & fill out ahead of time. It can be found online HERE.  
2. Changing our drivers licenses, the car registration & our insurance were kind of a pain but they are ALL required and ALL have to have your new address.
3. Don’t forget your $5. I almost did. Luckily there was a Bank of America on my walk to City Hall.
4. When the directions say to “provide a copy of two recent bills” they mean two DIFFERENT utilities. As in 1 PSE&G & 1 cable OR 1 water & 1 tax bill. In my mind, “two recent bills” means any 2 utility bills. I thought brought 2 of the same utility would prove I had been at the residence longer; a good thing when applying for a resident parking permit. Not so. Technology to the rescue & the hubs was able to fax something over.

Since we now have a permit, I cancelled our monthly parking at the garage near our current apartment. We’ll have to walk farther to get to our car but it saves us $200 per month. While I’m excited to have our shiny new hang tag, I can’t help but feel a little sad. We’ve loved living in our apartment for the past 3 years. Having to say goodbye is becoming much more real than it was May 29th.