In 2015, Jersey City legalized short-term rentals in all residential dwellings across all neighborhoods and streets in Jersey City, with minimal regulations. The 2015 regulations consist of 5 bullets and have been slightly abridged below.

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The full two pages of regulations adopted in 2015 (Ordinance 15.137), can be found here.

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Current Short-Term Rental Regulations adopted in 2015

A. The person offering a dwelling unit for Short-Term Rental use must be the owner or lessee of the residence in which the Short-Term Rental activity occurs. […]

B. No person offering a dwelling unit for short-term rental use shall be required to obtain any license for such use, unless such person offers more than 5 separate dwelling units for Short-term Rental use in the City. […]

C. There shall be no sign identifying the short-term rental use, and there shall be no identification of such Short-Term Rental use upon any mailbox.

D. The Short-Term Rental use shall be conducted in a manner that does not materially disrupt the residential character of the neighborhood.

E. No equipment or process shall be used in such Short-Term Rental which creates glare, odors, or other nuisance factors detectable to the human senses outside the lot on which the Short-Term Rental is conducted.

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Commentary / Analysis: Are the 2015 regulations not sufficient?

The entirety of the ahort-term rental regulations adopted in 2015 are the five bullet points, A through E above; they fit on the back of a napkin.

Some opponents of the new regulations argue that these regulations are sufficient and the rights of property owners and businesses operating short-term rentals shall not be encumbered by regulations. Other opponents of the new regulations concede that some stricter rules may be warranted.

Proponents of firmer regulations argue that the 2015 regulations are wholly inadequate to address the rapid increase in the number of short-term rentals in Jersey City in recent years for a number of reasons, including that the 2015 regulations:

• primarily considered short-term rentals in the form of home sharing and did not anticipate the significant number of commercial actors that have come into Jersey City to operate whole-home rentals
• are insufficient to address the quality-of-life issues (noise, garbage issues, etc) that the short-term rentals have brought to our neighborhoods
• did not foresee the number of apartments and homes that would be converted from dwellings for long term residents into short-term rentals for tourists and other transients, thereby making it harder for residents to find affordable housing.

The claimed deficiencies include that the existing ordinance releases all persons that operate 5 or fewer rentals from obtaining any kind of permit or license. This means that there is no mechanism to withdraw these hosts’ ‘eligibility’ to operate a short-term rental even if they show no concerns for neighbors and neighbors are adversely impacted by noise, littering, etc.

The 2015 rules do also not require the the operators of short-term rentals to provide any kind of contact details to the city, where the city can reach the operator in case of emergency or problems at the short-term rental – e.g. noise etc.

Prompted by complaints from local residents, our City Council found that more comprehensive regulations were required to protect Jersey City residents from negative effects of short-term rentals, and they developed and adopted new regulations in 2019.