Stamford residents may soon find parking relief as the city considers new residential parking zones after a three-year ban on expanding the program.

West End residents have been begging for protected parking for years.

Spaces are scarce because many of the neighborhood's new homes don't have any driveways. They're built near Stamford Hospital and Lione Park, which both attract many daytime drivers, taking up much of the available street-side spaces.

The city's transportation committee will vote Thursday night on the possible return of residential parking zones. In such zones, residents receive stickers for their vehicles to be able to park within the designated area. If the measure passes committee, the full Board of Representatives would have to also approve it before the policy took effect.

To apply for a new zone, 65 percent of residents in a neighborhood must sign a petition, then city traffic engineers would spend two months evaluating the request.

The city had put the program on hold three years ago because officials were concerned that they were creating too many of them, rendering them ineffective.

There's also a public meeting on the issue Thursday night at the Stamford Government Center downtown.