Woodbridge, NJ Rental Property Rules: Rent Control (2026)

1 creates the nine-member Woodbridge Township Rent Leveling Board, appointed by the Mayor with Council approval, with a chairman who is neither tenant nor landlord and five members needed for a quorum. 2 gives the Board power to issue subpoenas, adjudicate landlord and tenant applications, prosecute violations in Municipal Court, and order refunds or rent rebates when it finds a tenant has been overcharged; it must decide most applications within 45 days. 1b: at the expiration of a lease or termination of a periodic tenant's lease, no landlord shall request or receive a percentage increase in rent which is greater than five percent of the base rent for the previous twelve month period.

Section 20-4 allows vacancy decontrol, meaning a unit that becomes vacant is not restricted on its initial re-rental rate, but the unit falls back under the ordinance's controls for every tenancy after that. The chapter exempts small buildings: Section 20-1 defines dwelling units covered by the chapter to exclude multifamily facilities of four units or fewer in the aggregate, and it separately exempts motels and hotels from the definition of housing space entirely. Landlords can also add lawful surcharges on top of base rent, including a real estate tax surcharge, a capital improvement surcharge for work expected to last more than a year, and a hardship increase, each layered onto the base rent set as of January 1, 1977 and adjusted through a base year that resets every five years.