Williamsburg Brings back Visitor Parking Hang Tags
Move comes amid resident difficulties with new parking technology and privacy concerns
The City of Williamsburg informed residents on Friday afternoon that visitor hang tags will once again be available for residents of downtown neighborhoods. Previously, the City planned to require downtown residents to preregister the license plates of all visitors instead of providing physical passes for guests to hang from rear-view mirrors. The City states that the new visitor hang tags will be available in the coming days and can be picked up at the City’s Municipal Building on Lafayette St.
According to the announcement released by the City, residents’ parking privileges will still be monitored by license plate recognition technology. Resident parking decals will not be issued and residents are now required to register their vehicles in an online portal with information including license plate details and State registration.
The new parking program was announced by the City in early August and will affect selected downtown streets as well as those around the College of William and Mary. In the recent announcement, the City stated that they expect the new system to “streamline the management and enforcement of parking permits and passes.”
Resident concerns
Since the new monitoring system was announced, the City has received pushback about several issues. For example, multiple speakers at a recent City Council meeting raised concerns regarding some resident’s confusion with using the new program, as well as privacy concerns regarding the coming and going of their guests.
Yet the City has recognized that not all residents have embraced every aspect of the new system, particularly the issue of visitor parking, The announcement quoted Williamsburg City Manager Andrew Trivette as stating: “Leading up to this digital conversion, I underestimated the importance of physical guest passes to neighbors in permit parking streets … With this change, the City can provide flexibility to those who prefer the hang tags for their guests while evaluating the digital system’s effectiveness and efficiency.”
The selected vendor for the parking monitoring services is a company called Passport. The agreement with the City states: “End Users’ use of the Passport System shall at all times be governed by Passport’s Privacy Policy … and Passport’s Terms and Conditions … Passport’s Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions may be amended from time to time in Passport’s sole discretion.” The company’s privacy policy is over a hundred pages long.
Questions about Input and feedback
A timeline provided by the City in their announcement indicates that the residential parking program based on license plate monitoring has been under consideration since 2017. Similar license plate monitoring technology is used to enforce parking restrictions and fees at a City parking garage near downtown. The announcement states that City staff evaluated eight companies capable of providing license plate monitoring services before selecting Passport.
Yet, it is still unclear who else was informed by City staff before the decision was made to implement the new program. Multiple City Council Members did not respond to an email sent earlier this week inquiring what information they were given about the program and when they received it. Similar emails sent to another City representative were also unanswered, including a follow-up asking about any public input on the program before it was implemented.
Mayor Doug Pons is quoted in the announcement as stating: “Parking is a perennial challenge for any locality with a high quality of life … No one solution fits all, and parking will always be a work in progress as we balance convenience, function, and accountability. The broad use of guest passes makes digitization a unique challenge to overcome, and we are still working to solve it.”
The writer used the following sources:
City of Williamsburg News Flash: “City of Williamsburg Implements Changes to New Parking System”
Williamsburg - News Flash - August 1, 2025 - Parking Permits Are Moving to a Digital System
FOIA response - Williamsburg/Passport - Software License and Service Agreement
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