Williamsburg Poised to Launch Camera-Enforced Residential Parking Program
City Council approves higher parking fines, discusses enforcement grace period

Williamsburg residents will soon see a major change in how the city enforces neighborhood parking. On August 14, 2025, City Council focused much of its meeting on the upcoming rollout of a new digital residential parking program that replaces parking decals and visitor passes with license plate recognition technology.
According to the City, residential and guest permits will soon be managed through a new city website which launches Monday, August 18. Next week, City residents can begin purchasing 2025–26 permits online for $5 and their current physical permits will remain valid through August 31. The City’s Parking Ambassadors will begin parking violation enforcement with the new technology on September 1.
During the Council Meeting, City Manager Andrew Trivette acknowledged that the rollout will not be flawless. “The staff and I certainly have no illusions that this is going to be the perfect scenario, the perfect rollout of a new system. We're going to find things we didn’t think of that don’t work as well as it used to. And that's just something we'll have to wrestle with and decide if there's a way to fix that with the vendor, so it'll be a journey of a thousand steps,” he said. Trivette said the city would mail program details, website links, and an interactive parking map to residents early next week.
By the amount and breadth of their questions, it seemed like members of the City Council were themselves still learning the details of the program. Their questions included details about whether current resident data will transfer automatically and how license plates for residents and guests will be entered. Clarification was sought about differences between several websites and apps that are part of the parking system. They raised the issue of residents being able to report illegal parking without obvious indicators such as decals.
Staff was also asked whether the program’s rollout may require a period of reduced parking enforcement as residents and students adapt. The City Manager acknowledged that enforcement may be relaxed for a period of time, but declined to offer specifics. “I don’t know that we want to put a number on it, but we're gonna be pretty lenient in the beginning. But, you know, if you’ve gotten nine warnings, we may think that that’s probably enough for that vehicle.”
Several times in the meeting, City staff and members of the council stated that the new residential program should not be a surprise and was not something rushed into existence. “[T]his is really an iteration of this process that’s been going on for a long time,” Williamsburg Mayor Doug Pons said, a sentiment echoed by several City employees.
Yet, as of the time of this writing, just days before the new parking program is to begin, outdated information was still found on the City’s website, while pending information about the new program was still labeled “Updates Coming Soon!
Commenting on the new parking program, Pons said that “other than some inconvenience of learning the new system, it’s a much more affordable system to implement and will ultimately offer more benefits.”
But while the City budget anticipates that revenue from parking fines will increase 56.3% this year, the cost of the new parking program is unclear, as it isn’t mentioned in the FY25–26 Budget, Capital Improvement Plan (CIP), or the City’s most recent Goals, Initiatives & Outcomes (GIO) document.
As of the time of this writing, the City has not responded to a Freedom of Information Act request for contracts related to the new parking program.
Higher parking fines approved
In tandem with the digital rollout, Council unanimously approved Ordinance #25-10, the first increase in parking fines since 2011. The ordinance raises first-offense fines from $10 to $25, second offenses from $25 to $50, and third offenses from $50 to $75, with amounts doubling if unpaid after 14 days. The late penalty for a fifth or subsequent offense will rise from $500 to $600. Fines will reset annually on January 1.
The writer used AI tools and these sources:
Williamsburg - City Council Meeting - August 14, 2025 - Agenda
Williamsburg - City Council Meeting - August 14, 2025 - Video
Williamsburg - News Flash - August 1, 2025 - Parking Permits Are Moving to a Digital System