Before football home games this fall, retailers can be seen selling t-shirts, vendors filling their trays with soft drinks and scalpers selling their tickets. In this spirit of entrepreneurship, students living near Camp Randall also look for a way to make a little cash by parking cars in their yards.

“It’s a great way to make some extra money,” said University of Wisconsin senior Jamie Wu. “We are using it to pay for our heat this winter.”

Wu, who lives a stone’s throw away from the stadium on Madison Street, said her landlord has no problem with their business venture.

“Our lease detailed that it was okay for us to do this,” she said.
Wu estimated she and her roommates make about $300 per game by flagging down customers from Regent Street. She said she was unfamiliar with ordinance 28.04 (6), which states it is unlawful to park in front yards and that violators may receive a $25 ticket.

“I’m not too worried about getting a ticket,” she said.

Jeff Funnell, Property Manager for Apex Properties, said his landlords are generally okay with allowing tenants to turn their yards into parking lots.

“Each owner may have a different policy,” he said. “The important part is that it’s written in the lease.”

Funnell said he knows of one landlord who uses his property to his own advantage by requiring tenants to move cars by midnight before game days.

Although students may see this as a disadvantage, most landlords who operate under this system do not charge tenants for parking. In doing so, Funnell speculated that the end sum for various tenants is probably equal regardless of football parking profits.

Funnell said he realizes parking on lawns is illegal, but said most police officers turn a blind eye when it comes to enforcement.

“If they tried to enforce that it would be world war three,” Funnell said.

Not everyone is happy with the current parking system. Diana, who wished to withhold her last name, from the Parking Division of the Madison Public Works Department said “football Saturdays are a nightmare.”

“There are six or eight cops out there working like dogs,” she said.

The parking police do give out tickets on game days, Diana said, but “we’re so overwhelmed with calls like that.”

Ald. Tom Powell, District 5, said he’s often confronted with issues like this, but is unsure what to do about them.

“It’s probably illegal to be parking on lawns and terraces,” he said. “My own landlord does it, but I’ve let him slide on it.”

Powell said he thinks it is unfair for landlords to make tenants move their cars.

“That’s the shadiest thing I’ve heard from students,” he said. “I tell them they don’t have to give it up for any reason.”

Powell blamed the university for not coming up with better parking solutions. In addition to Camp Randall, he used the Kohl Center as an example of a large facility with no parking.

“I really think that by now we should have come up with a better parking solution than parking on people’s lawns,” he said. “I mean, good God, we’re in the 21st century.”

University Police Chief Dale Burke contested Powell’s remarks, saying UW’s system is equally good, if not better, than comparable colleges such as Penn State and the University of Michigan.

“Those schools have a large field for people to park in, but we don’t have that kind of space,” he said. “We’re in the middle of a neighborhood.”
Burke said he thinks the makeshift parking system is suitable for game days.

“It’s worked for a lot of years,” he said. “For the most part, the people who do it think it’s a good idea. As long as everyone’s happy it’s okay. Why fix it if it’s not broken?”

Burke guessed that about half of the estimated 20,000 ticket-holders who drive to the games park on lawns near the stadium.

Gordy Redlin from Appleton is one of those patrons. When he and his three sons came to see the Badgers take on Northern Illinois University, they parked in Wu’s yard. Redlin said he would not have it any other way.

“One of our requirements is we have to be close to the stadium,” he said. “That’s where the action is and the atmosphere is the best.”

For the most part, Wu said, her customers are fairly easy to please.

“We’ve encountered a few guys who hassle us about getting parked in, but we just tell them there is nothing we can do about it,” she said.

So far, Wu said she has met no serious problems with either parkers or her landlord.

Funnell cautioned students to consult their leases if unsure of their parking rights.

“The main thing is to make sure everything is on the table when you see the apartment and sign the lease,” he said. “It’s good to have a well-written lease. So many things could be avoided with a good lease.”

As for Wu and her roommates, they will continue to run a parking-lot operation in their yard.
“It’s the easiest job I’ll ever have,” she said.