For years, the city has granted private security guards the power to issue parking tickets, but recently residents whose communities they patrol say many of the “special patrolmen” have turned into heavy-handed parking enforcers.

The guards are hired to patrol such private developments as Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Residents and City Council members say they have overstepped their bounds, egregiously handing out tickets both on and off the private property.

The City Council’s Transportation Committee today plans to look at complaints from residents of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, which cover 14th Street to 23rd Street on the East Side of Manhattan between First Avenue and Avenue C.

“We’re not making accusations, but the reality is that there is citywide concern over the tremendous increase in parking tickets being issued,” the chairman of the committee, John Liu, said. “In the case of private enforcement, if there is a monetary incentive for issuing parking tickets, that would be of absolute concern to New Yorkers.”

Mr. Liu called the hearing a “fact-finding” mission that would attempt to shed more light on the kind of training and monitoring the special patrolmen receive. While private enforcement of city parking regulations has existed for years, little is known about it, Mr. Liu said. A spokesman for the Department of Finance, Sam Miller, said the agency’s Parking Violations Bureau is responsible for training and monitoring the patrolmen.

The patrolmen are authorized by the police commissioner to issue parking tickets, payments of which go into city coffers. They are not, however, policemen, even though they wear similar uniforms emblazoned with the words “Special Patrolman.” They are private security guards empowered by municipal laws but employed by private firms.

Other properties that have used special patrolman to hand out parking tickets include Parkchester South Condominium and the Hunt’s Point Terminal Market, both in the Bronx.

While residents agree that parking has never been plentiful at Stuyvesant Town, available parking dried up about a year ago when the owner of the property, MetLife, along with the management company, Rose Associates, turned no-parking zones into no-standing zones. The effect was to make it illegal for those with disability tags issued by the city to park there, as such tags do not allow people to park in no standing zones. The company designated several regular parking spots, already in short supply, as spots for cars with disability tags.

The decision was made after consulting with the Department of Transportation, a spokesman with the department, Ted Timbers, said. “We don’t have the authority to overrule them,” he said.

Besides raising the ire of residents, who had to give up parking that was already in short supply, many saw a double standard. The no-standing zone designated to create access on the narrow streets for emergency vehicles was lined with vehicles displaying tags from the city’s police and fire departments, which exempt them from being ticketed.

Some residents say the patrolmen have threatened to write them tickets on city streets, an act they see as blurring the lines between working for the city and a private company. One Stuyvesant Town resident, who gave her name only as Jackie, said the enforcement on and off the property is overzealous. “You can’t have it both ways.” she said.