Maybe cars aren’t cool with the college kids anymore.

Or maybe, they still are.

Lawrence city commissioners on Tuesday are being asked to figure out that issue as they decide whether to exempt a proposed $75 million student-oriented complex from the city’s parking code. Chicago-based HERE, LLC is asking the city to reduce by 100 spaces the required amount of parking for its 237-unit apartment complex that is proposed for property across the street from Memorial Stadium.

Jim Heffernan, an executive with HERE, said the reduced parking requirement is “vital” to the prospects of the project. He said numbers from Kansas University parking officials indicate that fewer college students bring vehicles to school than what Lawrence residents may think. He said that seems to be the case in other university communities too.

“If you cast the net a little wider and analyze other college communities, what we’re proposing is completely consistent or even conservative with the norm in other college communities,” Heffernan said.

The city’s planning staff is recommending the reduction in the parking spaces after seeing numbers from KU that show about 70 percent of the current residents at KU’s Jayhawker Towers have a vehicle. If that percentage holds true for the HERE project, city planners said the apartment project could reduce its parking by 100 spaces and still have enough to accommodate residents.

Residents in the nearby Oread neighborhood aren’t convinced. They note that the proposed parking plan would provide 539 parking spaces for an apartment complex that has 624 bedrooms. In addition, the project has about 13,000 square feet of retail space, which will require some parking.

“I think a glut of cars are going to end up in the neighborhood,” said Candice Davis, who is co-chair of the Oread Residents Association.

Davis said it would be an error for the city to assume that residents of lower-cost, on-campus student housing are going to have the same vehicle ownership rates of an apartment complex that has been portrayed as upscale housing.

“There is no reason to think that a student who can afford to live in that development isn’t going to have a car,” Davis said.

The city tried to determine the vehicle ownership rate of residents at some privately owned apartment complexes near KU, but was unsuccessful.

City commissioners are split on the issue. Mayor Mike Amyx and Commissioner Bob Schumm both have expressed reservations about granting the parking reduction. But Commissioners Mike Dever, Jeremy Farmer and Terry Riordan said they wanted to further consider the request.

Dever on Monday said he hadn’t yet made up his mind about the issue, but said he wants to make sure that the city’s parking standards don’t unnecessarily hamper development near the university.

“If we are going to be talking about sustainability, we need to talk about ways to become less reliant on cars,” Dever said. “We’ve really invited this conversation.”

Dever said he also believes the issue should lead to a larger discussion about how to address parking demand in the Oread. He said a permit parking system that could cut down on the number of nonresidents who use the neighborhood as a cheap place to park, should be discussed.

“I’ve brought the idea up before, and people have shied away from it,” Dever said of a permit system. “But I think it is an area where it makes a lot of sense.”

Commissioners meet at 6:35 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.