2 rules apply — the local one first, then the county and state rules that bind alongside it.
Verified on 2026-08-17.
Bayonne's Chapter 16, rewritten in 2023, controls only a "covered rental unit" — one controlled under the 1973 ordinance and its successors that "continues to house a tenant who has not vacated the rental unit or been legally evicted from the rental unit since June 30, 2011". Where a unit is covered, the increase is CPI-based and capped at 5.5% of the current base rent.
Dwellings containing four or fewer rental units are exempt outright, so the two-, three- and four-family stock a small investor buys here is outside the ordinance whatever its tenancy history.
This is what makes Bayonne unlike the rest of Hudson County, and it cuts the buyer's way: control lapsed for every unit vacant on 30 June 2011, so for most buildings on the market the chapter is dormant unless a sitting tenant has been in place continuously for fifteen years. Ask for tenancy start dates, not the rent roll alone — that column decides whether the ordinance applies at all. Hardship needs operating expenses above 60% of gross annual income, and capital-improvement surcharges are capped together at 20% of the monthly base rent.
Exemptions
Sources
Verified on 2026-08-17.
New Jersey has no statewide rent control. The Department of Community Affairs' 2026 survey of all 564 municipalities found 120 with an ordinance and 444 without, and their caps, unit thresholds, exemptions and vacancy rules differ town by town.
This municipality's ordinance has not been read into this knowledge base. Check the DCA's survey — it names every municipality and gives the unit threshold and the increase limit for each — and then read the ordinance itself or call the rent board, before assuming rents can be reset on purchase or turnover. One statewide limit does apply everywhere: N.J.S.A. 2A:42-84.5 keeps municipal rent control off housing completed after 25 June 1987 for 30 years from completion.
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