Elizabeth's Chapter 5.90 (Ordinance 5424) requires every short-term rental application to include a floor plan identifying each sleeping room and the number of bedrooms, and conditions the annual STR license on the unit's rental Certificate of Occupancy (CO). The CO and the New Jersey rooming-house and sleeping-room standards in N.J.A.C. 5:10 and the State Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law (N.J.S.A. 55:13A) set the binding occupant cap, because Elizabeth issues the STR license against the existing residential CO rather than creating a separate higher STR-only headcount.
Under Chapter 5.90 of the Code of the City of Elizabeth, enacted by Ordinance 5424, an STR license application filed with the Bureau of Central Licensing must include the property's block, lot, and unit numbers, the exact number of sleeping rooms, and a floor plan of each level identifying each sleeping room. The license is issued only when the dwelling unit holds a current rental Certificate of Occupancy from the Bureau of Planning and Zoning and a valid Fire Prevention Bureau certificate, so the unit's lawful residential occupancy fixes the maximum number of overnight guests for the short-term rental. Elizabeth has not adopted a separate STR-only persons-per-bedroom cap that overrides the CO. The State Hotel and Multiple Dwelling Law (N.J.S.A. 55:13A) and the New Jersey Bureau of Housing Inspection rules at N.J.A.C. 5:10 govern minimum sleeping-room size, occupancy, light, ventilation, and life-safety conditions for rented dwellings; sleeping rooms must meet the room-area minimums in those rules and the floor area provided per occupant standards used by the Bureau of Housing Inspection during rental inspections. Because Elizabeth additionally prohibits short-term rentals in buildings with more than four dwelling units unless the owner is on premises and the condominium or cooperative association consents (Ord. 5424), the operating headcount in larger buildings is capped by the owner-presence and association-approval condition rather than guest count alone. Hosts subject to Chapter 5.90 must keep the floor plan on file matching the as-licensed bedroom count; renting beds in non-bedroom spaces such as living rooms or basements is not authorized by the CO and exposes the host to license action and to Uniform Construction Code citations under N.J.A.C. 5:23.
Operating without a license, exceeding the use authorized by the rental Certificate of Occupancy, or operating an STR in a 5-or-more-unit building without owner presence and association approval can lead to fines up to $2,000 per offense under Elizabeth's general penalty framework and to STR license suspension or revocation by the Bureau of Central Licensing. Violations of NJ housing code occupancy and sleeping-room standards can also be cited by the Bureau of Housing Inspection under N.J.S.A. 55:13A.
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