Plainfield, NJ Parking Rules: Overnight Parking (2026)

Section 16:18-1 of the Plainfield Municipal Code sets one fixed overnight window, 2:00 A.M. to 6:00 A.M., during which parking is prohibited on the lots it covers. The ban attaches to the lot, not to the driver. It reaches any off-street parking project or lot owned or controlled by the City of Plainfield within the area bound by Green Brook, Roosevelt Avenue, East and West Fifth Streets, Central Avenue and Grove Street, and also Lot Number 7, located south of East Seventh Street. The only carve-out the section prints is for areas designated as exceptions by the City of Plainfield, so a car left in a covered lot overnight is a violation unless that part of the lot carries the designation.

The section is limited to City off-street lots. It is not a citywide overnight ban on residential streets. On-street limits in the City of Plainfield come from the schedules that Article 4 of Chapter 16 points to. Section 16:4-3, for example, bars parking during the times listed in Schedule II on the streets named there, except on public holidays and by permit.

Other lot rules sit next to 16:18-1. Section 16:18-6 makes it unlawful to park on City lots in violation of the requirements or regulations adopted for the lot and posted there. Section 16:18-4 allows an overtime notice to be affixed to a vehicle left at an expired meter in a City lot, with a charge set on the notice of not more than One Dollar ($1.00) for each hour or fraction thereof, and it bars removing the vehicle from the lot before that fee is paid.

Overnight parking on private nonresidential property is a zoning question, not a parking one. Under Plainfield Municipal Code § 17:9-41(C)(3), vehicles parked on a premises overnight in nonresidential zones are construed as outdoor storage, not parking. Only licensed, registered and road worthy vehicles stored in rows qualify as permitted outdoor storage. In residential zones, § 17:9-41(B)(3) allows one van-type bus to be parked, but not stored overnight.