2 rules apply — the local one first, then the county and state rules that bind alongside it.
Verified on 2026-08-17.
Plainfield has no rent-control ordinance on record. The DCA's 2026 survey of all 564 municipalities lists it among the 444 with none, and records no rent leveling board, no ordinance and no increase limit for it.
No unit count is controlled, because no ordinance applies at any unit count.
A positive finding rather than a gap, and worth stating because Plainfield sits in a county where Elizabeth caps increases at 3% — assuming a Union County city is controlled is the ordinary mistake. It was proposed and rejected rather than never raised: ordinance MC 2025-01 would have created a rent levelling board and was tabled unanimously on 10 February 2025, and the city's directory lists no rent board. Two municipalities are routinely confused with this one and neither's rules apply here: North Plainfield, in Somerset County, does have a rent-regulation ordinance and a board, and South Plainfield is a third place again. What remains is the statewide layer, which is not nothing — the Anti-Eviction Act still requires cause for every removal, and an increase steep enough to be unconscionable is still contestable.
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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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