Hackensack, NJ Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Obstruction Rules (2026)

Article III of Chapter 148, Obstructions and Encroachments, opens with Section 148-23's core prohibition: no person may permit any building, structure, erection or part of one to encroach upon or extend over, under or into a public street or public place. That rule targets permanent physical intrusions, such as projections, foundations or additions that creep into the right-of-way, not temporary staging. Section 148-26 then covers what gets placed on the sidewalk surface itself: no person may place or permit to be placed on any sidewalk any object or thing that encumbers the sidewalk or renders travel dangerous or unsafe.

Read together with the surrounding sections, the article addresses related hazards individually: Section 148-25 requires cellarways and hoistways extending into a street to be covered with flush iron doors and guarded when open, and Section 148-27 requires an owner or tenant to remove earth, rocks, rubbish or other material that caves onto a sidewalk or roadway from an adjoining lot within three days of a notice of violation served under Section 148-5. Unlike Section 148-24's material-storage permit, Sections 148-23 and 148-26 describe no permit path around the prohibition itself; an encroaching structure or a sidewalk-encumbering object is unlawful outright, and the only route to lawful placement in the right-of-way runs through the separate permit mechanisms elsewhere in the chapter, such as Section 148-6's general permitting or Section 148-24's material-storage permit.