ADU rules in Edison

Edison's zoning chapter authorizes no accessory dwelling unit of any kind. Every base residential district permits exactly one residential use, a single-family detached house: R-AA (§ 37-10.1), R-A and R-A (PRD) (§ 37-11.1), R-BB (§ 37-12.1), R-B (§ 37-13.1) and the R-C zone added 12-27-2023 by Ord. No. O.2199-2023 (§ 37-13A.1), each opening with the exclusive formula 'No building, structure or premises shall be used and no building or structure shall be erected or structurally altered except for the following uses.' The R-AA accessory-use list that the other districts adopt by cross-reference is a closed enumeration of private garages and carports, swimming pools and tennis courts, outdoor barbecue structures and storage sheds, animal shelters for domestic pets, and private stables on three acres or more; no dwelling appears in it. Chapter 37 reinforces this twice: § 37-4.14a prohibits 'All uses not specifically permitted by zone or by State or Federal law,' and § 37-4.14e, added by Ord. No. O.1880-2014, bars building more than one principal single-family structure on a lot in any zone that permits single-family dwellings. A backyard cottage is therefore neither a permitted principal use nor a listed accessory use, and can be built only on a use variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment.

The same single-family-only district lists bar an attached, internal or basement second unit. Chapter 37 does define an accessory apartment at § 37-3.1 as 'a separate living unit, as defined by the New Jersey Uniform Construction Code, whether or not individual utilities or access (doorways) are provided,' a definition added in 2006 by Ord. Nos. O.1485-2006 and O.1515-2006 alongside enforcement-flavored definitions of 'approved stairway,' 'attic' and 'habitable attic.' That definition is never used to permit anything: across the entire code the term appears only at § 37-43.6 and § 37-44.7, where an accessory apartment 'for the sole purpose of housing the project superintendent' may sit above a maintenance garage in the AHOZ and AHOZ-2 zones, two site-specific affordable-housing settlement districts (AHOZ covers a 12.3-acre portion of Block 3-B, Lots 19 and 21). Chapter 37 also defines a two-family dwelling at § 37-3.1, but no residential district permits one, so converting a house into two units is not available either. Carving a basement or in-law apartment out of an Edison single-family home creates a second dwelling unit that no district allows.

Read from § 37-4.5, the general accessory-building rule that applies in every residential district. These caps govern sheds and garages; they are not ADU standards, and a habitable unit would still fail the use test in § 37-10.1 and § 37-4.14. Chapter 37 sets no floor-area cap expressed as a percentage of the principal dwelling anywhere, and the Schedule of Area, Yard and Building Requirements at § 37-63.1 carries per-district lot, yard and coverage standards for principal buildings only.

Not addressed. Because no district authorizes an accessory dwelling, Chapter 37 contains no owner-occupancy condition for one, and the code has no accessory-apartment program that a residency test could attach to. The nearest occupancy rule is a housing-code density limit rather than an ownership test: § 17-1.5a.d allows no more than one family plus two unrelated occupants in a dwelling unit without a rooming-house license. New Jersey has no statewide ADU statute imposing or preempting owner occupancy as of 2026-09-04; S1786, S2680, A3488 and A3710 remain in committee, and the accessory-dwelling-unit definition added to the Fair Housing Act at N.J.S.A. 52:27D-304(n) by P.L. 2024, c.2 is a definition, not a mandate.

Read from the schedule of minimum off-street parking in § 37-60.3q. Parking must be provided on the same lot as the building it serves (§ 37-10.5, § 37-60.3o), and in the R-AA district no more than 20% of the required front yard may be paved for driveways and parking. There is no transit-proximity reduction and no ADU exemption anywhere in Chapter 37.

There is no ADU permit path, because no Edison district lists an accessory dwelling as either a permitted or a conditional use, and the zoning permit that § 37-67.3 requires before any building permit can only be issued for a use that complies with Chapter 37. The sole route is extraordinary relief: a use variance from the Zoning Board of Adjustment under N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d), which § 39-7.3a4 authorizes 'in particular cases and for special reasons, but only by the affirmative vote of at least two-thirds (2/3) of the full authorized membership of the Board.' The application fee is $1,000 per use variance (§ 39-12.18d.3) and the escrow deposit $5,000 per d-variance (§ 39-12.23e.1(c)), though § 39-12.23b.2 exempts development of or improvement to one single-family dwelling on an existing lot from escrow, which is why the Township's 2026 Land Use Application notes that single-family home variance applications are escrow-exempt. § 39-12.25 (Ord. No. O.1540-2006) makes a certified shorthand reporter mandatory at the applicant's expense for every development application except minor subdivisions, minor site plans and standalone 'c' variances, so a use variance carries that cost too, and § 39-12.11 lets any applicant or interested party appeal the Board's use-variance decision to the Township Council. This is discretionary relief, not a conditional use, so it is recorded as unknown rather than conditional-use.

§ 17-1.11b bars renting a residential rental dwelling unit until the Division of Health performs a reoccupancy inspection and issues a certificate of approval; the definition there excludes only rapid-turnover lodging such as hotels, motels and rooming houses, so it reaches an ordinary house rental. Chapter 17 § 17-2, amended in its entirety 4-25-2024 by Ord. No. O.2215-2024, requires annual registration by January 15 and licensing, though its RENTAL UNIT definition simultaneously names 'single-family homes and owner-occupied two-family homes' and excludes 'rental facilities containing less than five (5) units,' and the occupancy prohibition in § 17-2.6 bites only on facilities of five or more units. Rent control lives in § 17-4. Full-text searches of the code for short-term rental, transient accommodation and Airbnb turn up no short-term-rental chapter; New Jersey's transient accommodation tax is a tax, not a land-use rule. Pending change: Ord. No. O.2285-2026, introduced 8-26-2026 with public hearing and final adoption scheduled for 9-9-2026, would delete § 17-2 in full and replace the license with a Certificate of Compliance plus annual Township inspection of rental facilities, keeping the same RENTAL UNIT definition.