The city council reached a consensus Wednesday about what kind of larger commercial vehicles will be allowed to park in residential areas.

Covington resident Virginia Hoffman, who lives on Forest Drive, has previously brought complaints to the council about two neighbors, one who had a flat-bed car carrier and one who occasionally has kept construction equipment at his house.

City Planning Director Randy Vinson and Senior Planner Scott Gaither researched ways to possibly limit commercial vehicle parking in residential-zoned areas and presented a proposed ordinance to the council at a Wednesday work session.

The ordinance would prevent certain commercial vehicles from parking outside of residences or on public right-of-ways in these zonings, NR-1, NR-2, NR-3, CR and TCR. All construction equipment and any commercial vehicles that have a gross vehicle weight of more than 17,000 pounds, are longer than 25-feet, are greater than a Class 5 or require a commercial driver’s license would be prohibited under the proposed ordinance.

Some examples of vehicles that would likely be restricted are delivery trucks, drilling trucks, flat bed tow trucks, welding trucks, lift trucks, medium-duty dump trucks, semi-truck cabs and any large trailers.

Any vehicle would still be allowed to be parked in a residential area if it was parked in an enclosed structure and not visible to the public.

Originally the gross weight and class requirements were even more restrictive, but councilmen Keith Dalton and Chris Smith expressed concern about people not being able to park their school buses, larger church vans and smaller street sweepers.

The proposed ordinance will be rewritten to reflect the weight and class changes and will be brought to the council for a first reading and vote soon. The council members who were present, Dalton, Franklin, Smith, Mike Whatley and Hawnethia Williams, all expressed that the changes were amenable to them.