New tech keeps tabs on parking violations in Winter Park

Visitors and local residents visiting Park Avenue and the central business district should think twice before leaving their car in a parking spot for more than the allotted time.

The Winter Park Police Department recently started using new technology to help them better enforce posted time parking spaces throughout downtown.

Parking spots with time limits — ranging from 15 minutes to four hours — now will be monitored with new software and a device that sits atop the parking-enforcement officer’s car. The technology — known as LPR or license plate recognition — allows easy enforcement by simply scanning license plates. The system logs in the time and location of the vehicle, and the parking-enforcement software alerts the officer with an audible tone if a vehicle has gone over.

Drivers must move their car to a different parking spot at least 500 feet away before the time limit is reached to avoid a citation.

The officer currently is issuing warnings under the new system but will start giving $25 citations beginning Monday, Oct. 1. Each successive violation is a $45 citation.

“As far as getting used to the idea, we’re calling it a grace period that’s occurring right now,” said Sgt. Garvin McComie, of the Winter Park Police Department.

The new software came with a price tag of $35,000 — funding that was approved by the Community Redevelopment Agency in November 2017. The decision to implement the new technology was a recommendation from consulting firm Kimley-Horn’s 2017 downtown parking strategy presentation. The firm advised that the city better manage the inventory of parking spaces in the central business district. 

Keeping a better inventory of the existing spaces helps the city to determine if it needs to construct more parking, Winter Park Director of Communications Clarissa Howard said

There are no 24-hour parking spaces in the central business district, but employees at the various businesses can obtain a parking permit that hangs from the rearview mirror of their vehicle. This allows employees to park in designated areas — such as the city hall parking lot and the large parking lot next to the SunRail station — for up to eight hours. 

Howard stressed that although the technology to enforce the posted time parking space is new, the parking enforcement itself is not.