Hoboken, NJ Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Section 136-2A(2) folds Hoboken's old vacant-land ordinances into the Nuisances chapter. Subsection (c) requires the owner to fence a vacant private premises, closing off the kind of open, unmaintained lot that once drew separate treatment under former Sections 110-7 through 110-9 before those sections were repealed and consolidated into Chapter 136 in October 2018. Beyond the fencing duty, Section 136-9A gives the City authority under N.J.S.A. 40:48-2.13 to order an owner or tenant to remove brush, weeds, including ragweed, dead and dying trees, stumps, roots, obnoxious growths, filth, garbage, trash and debris from a private premises within 10 days of written notice, whenever removal is necessary for public health, safety or general welfare or to eliminate a fire hazard.

If the owner ignores the notice, Section 136-9C lets the City perform the removal itself, and Section 136-9D, citing N.J.S.A. 40:48-2.14, allows the Director of Environmental Services to certify the cleanup cost to the governing body, which then charges the amount against the property as a lien collected the same way as unpaid taxes. Section 136-9E makes clear that paying the lien does not excuse the owner from the separate Section 136-8 penalty for the underlying violation. The Health Department, Environmental Services Department and Construction Code inspectors, all named enforcement agencies under Section 136-1, can inspect a vacant lot and initiate either the fencing citation or the removal-and-lien process.