Woodbridge, NJ Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

1's legislative findings state that abandoned properties create a wide range of problems, fostering criminal activity, creating public health problems and diminishing the quality of life for residents and business operators, and for these reasons abandoned properties are presumptively considered to be nuisances. 3 lets the Public Officer place a property on the abandoned property list once it has gone unoccupied for six continuous months and meets an added test: it needs rehabilitation with none underway, construction stalled before completion, at least one delinquent property tax installment, or a separate nuisance finding.

4 defines that separate nuisance finding to include a building unfit for habitation, a vacancy that materially raises fire risk, unauthorized entry the owner failed to secure against, vermin or debris accumulation the owner failed to remove, or a dilapidated appearance that hurts the economic welfare of nearby residents. 6 layers on a registration mandate for any vacant residential property: the owner must file a registration statement within 30 days of the property becoming vacant, renew it annually, pay a $500 initial fee and a $1,000 renewal fee, post an 8-by-10-inch warning sign, and within 60 days trim bushes and trees, keep grass under eight inches, clear all garbage and litter, remove all stored vehicles, and inspect the property weekly.

Separately, Section 18-7 lets the Township's Commissioner of Building Safety order the repair, closing or demolition of any building found unfit for human habitation after notice and a hearing, with the cost of removal or demolition becoming a municipal lien on the property if the owner fails to comply.