Toms River Set To Repeal Certificate Of Occupancy Ordinance

TOMS RIVER, NJ — The Toms River Township Council has scheduled a special meeting for Thursday to finalize the repeal of the town's controversial certificate of occupancy ordinance.

The meeting is set for 7 p.m. in the L. Manuel Hirshblond Room at town hall, 33 Washington St.

In addition to the ordinance repeal, the council is set to appoint someone to fill the Ward 2 seat, which became vacant when Daniel Rodrick was elected mayor. The person will serve through Dec. 31; the final year of Rodrick's council term will be decided in the November 2024 election.

The certificate of occupancy ordinance, which was adopted in December 2021, set off a controversy in the summer of 2022 as homeowners found their efforts to sell their homes mired in an intensive list of requirements to be met to receive a certificate of continued use and occupancy from the township.

The aim of the ordinance, officials said, was to address safety concerns arising from work that was done without permits that did not meet safety codes, posing life-threatening hazards. There were instances of improperly vented heating units, electrical work that posed fire hazards, and basement bedrooms that had no windows — posing the potential for trapping someone in a fire, then-township engineer Robert Chankalian said at a September 2022 council meeting where real estate agents and homeowners complained about the ordinance.

The ordinance also aimed to address issues where people who had purchased homes damaged during Superstorm Sandy and were saddled after the fact with expensive requirements to raise them or to address substantial damage designations — requirements the sellers knew but did not disclose, Chankalian said.

The ordinance also had significant fees, but the council later amended it to reduce the fees and streamline some of the process that was dragging out the issuing of certificates.

Those changes did not satisfy real estate agents and homeowners who had been frustrated by the ordinance, which researched permit history going back decades and in some cases held current owners responsible for things that were done long before they purchased the home.

Councilman Justin Lamb pushed for repeal of the ordinance even after the fees, which he called "a money grab," were reduced, and repealing it became a key piece of Rodrick's mayoral campaign.

The repeal was one of the first matters on the agenda after Rodrick was sworn in as mayor and his running mates, Lynne O'Toole, Tom Nivison and Craig Coleman, were sworn in to their council seats.

Councilmen James Quinlisk and David Ciccozzi voted against the introduction of the repeal ordinance, because of concerns that eliminating the certificate of occupancy requirements will leave safety issues unaddressed and leave first-time buyers in particular at risk of being saddled with a serious defect.

Lamb insisted that the township's fire inspection requirement, along with having a home inspector look at a property before purchase, will cover those issues.

"Whatever happened to buyer beware?" Lamb said, repeating a phrase invoked by several realtors at the September 2022 council meeting.

Home inspections are not a requirement in real estate sales in New Jersey, and while agents recommend them, home buyers sometimes forgo them.

The day after the reorganization meeting, Rodrick issued an order suspending enforcement of the certificate of occupancy ordinance. It also ordered the township's code enforcement division to stop accepting applications for the certificate immediately.

The suspension of the ordinance prompted a statement from the Toms River Bureau of Fire Prevention noting that requirements for smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors and a fire extinguisher are set by state law any time a "one- or two-family or attached single-family structure is sold, leased or subjected to a change of occupancy."

"Property owners are still required to obtain the CSACMAPFEC from the Toms River Bureau of Fire Prevention as outlined in N.J.A.C. 5:70-4.19 to evidence compliance with fire safety regulations," the statement said. "Application and scheduling of inspection for the required CSACMAPFEC can be completed at https://trfireprevention.com/residential-smoke-inspections/."

"The Toms River Bureau of Fire Prevention stresses the importance of adhering to these regulations to ensure the safety and well-being of residents and property occupants," the statement said.