Parking on the first block of Broadway in Jim Thorpe Borough will look a bit different in the future.

Borough Council on Thursday night approved a motion authorizing its solicitor, James Nanovic, to craft a resolution allowing only compact and subcompact vehicles to park in the first block.

The restriction would be in place on both sides of the street. Borough officials said the intent of the resolution would be to create more room on an already tight street for vehicles, particularly those of the emergency response variety, to get through without potentially hitting a parked vehicle.

“It’s a serious problem,” Mayor Michael Sofranko said. “Everyone knows you can’t get up and down Broadway with some of the larger vehicles that are parking there. Two nights ago there was a van and an extended cab parked there and it was impossible to get through. You can’t have that.”

Police Chief Joe Schatz said parking is one of, if not the main, problems his department hears about on a daily basis and the resolution is one way to try to deal with it.

“Sometimes these cars are parking too far away from the curb and that’s an issue too because the back hangs out then,” Council President Greg Strubinger said. “I think we’re hearing serious problems and it needs to be addressed.”

Borough officials tried to come up with alternatives, but other options would have eliminated some parking spaces in a downtown already thin on them.

“Businesses, with this resolution, won’t lose any parking spaces,” Sofranko said. “If we went to parallel parking, you would lose parking spots. This keeps the same amount of spaces, you just need to drive a smaller car to park in that first block.”