NEW YORK - Edward Funches has a city permit that allows him to park where many other drivers cannot. Trouble is, he often cannot find an open spot.

"I am very frustrated. Because so many people have all different types of plaques," he said.

On Tuesday he found a spot in a no standing zone near City Hall, but it wasn't easy. The area was thick with vehicles displaying special parking permits. At the same time, the City Council was trying to fix that — passing nine bills attacking so-called placard abuse, or drivers abusing city parking passes.

"All those bills that we are voting today bring new teeth on enforcement. Now we need to be sure that they obey the law," said City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez.

The misuse of the passes has become a contentious issue as the number of city placards surged under Mayor de Blasio. 

City workers are supposed to use the permits to help them carry out their official duties. But many use them on personal time or to park in areas like crosswalks and bike lanes, where even vehicles with placards are not supposed to be.

The mayor announced a crackdown this year, .promising a digital system to track all 126,000 city placards. The nine bills complement that effort.

“Most of the severe placard abuse that we see across the city are people that are doing this way more than three times and that’s what we really want to come down on the persistent abusers of either fake placards or city placards," said City Council Speaker Corey Johnson.

The bills would make the NYPD regularly report on cases of misused placards and revoke the placards of drivers who repeatedly misuse them.

Under the legislative package, the city could ultimately issue fewer parking placards. One bill would require city agencies to figure out how placards are used and how many are actually needed for its employees.

Another would expressly forbid city workers from parking in bus and bike lanes and crosswalks, by fire hydrants and on sidewalks. 

City Councilman Chaim Deutsch said he has no faith in traffic agents would enforce it.

"They are the biggest violators in my district. When they pull over to issue someone a ticket they could be double parking triple parking, parking on the bike lane, parking on the bus lane parking at a hydrant," he added.

The NYPD and the mayor back the measures.