ADU rules in Lakewood

Lakewood's Unified Development Ordinance authorizes exactly one accessory living unit and it must be inside the house: a basement apartment under section 18-910. No zoning district lists a detached accessory dwelling, guest house or cottage. The accessory uses allowed in every residential district are private residential garages, sheds, greenhouses, private swimming pools and home occupations (for example the R-10 district at section 18-902F.3). Section 18-907A states that all uses not expressly permitted in the chapter are prohibited, and section 18-900B repeats that only uses specifically provided for in a district are permitted unless the Zoning Board of Adjustment authorizes them, so a backyard cottage would need a use variance under N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d), which takes five affirmative votes. Full-text searches of the whole code return zero hits for 'accessory dwelling unit' and no accessory apartment use provision anywhere.

An internal accessory unit is allowed as of right, but in one form only. Section 18-910D makes basement apartments permitted uses in all residential zones, and section 18-910I prohibits them in the A-1 Agricultural Zone and in age-restricted communities. Section 18-910C requires the unit to be 'solely contained beneath the ground floor and separate from the residence above the ground floor', with its own USPS-recognized address and mailbox plus a kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living area, and section 18-910E allows only one per single-family residence, including townhouses and condominiums. Above-grade attached forms (an addition, an attic or over-garage conversion, an in-law wing) are authorized by no section and would need a use variance. Construction conditions are real but ministerial: an independent means of entry and exit plus a secondary egress window or door, access to all utility meters and shutoffs, a fire separation system with smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and full compliance with the state Uniform Construction Code.

Section 18-910 sets no floor-area limit, no percentage-of-primary-dwelling limit and no minimum size; the only dimensional constraint is locational, that the apartment be 'solely contained beneath the ground floor' (section 18-910C). Section 18-200 defines a basement as 'that portion of a building that is partly or completely below grade' and adds that a basement may contain bedrooms if built to all applicable construction codes. Habitable-space dimensions therefore come from the state Uniform Construction Code, which sections 18-910B and 18-910H incorporate, not from the zoning ordinance. The district bulk standards (minimum lot area and width, setbacks, maximum building coverage and a 35-foot height limit in the single-family districts) govern the house itself, and a basement apartment adds no separate bulk requirement.

Section 18-910 contains no owner-occupancy condition, and nothing in Article IX or in the permit sections of Article XI conditions approval on the owner living in the principal dwelling. If anything the ordinance points the other way for the accessory unit itself: section 18-910E provides that 'the said basement apartment shall be a rental unit for lease.' A code-wide search for 'owner occupied' returns only rent control, fire prevention, recycling and emergency-heat provisions, none of them a zoning condition. Owner occupancy still matters financially rather than legally: Chapter 14 exempts a building with four or fewer rental units from rent control only if it is owner occupied and not part of a complex (section 14-1.4f), so a non-resident landlord can find the basement apartment's rent regulated once the seven-year new-to-market exemption in section 14-1.4d expires.

Section 18-807A.1 sends residential parking to the state Residential Site Improvement Standards for single-family detached dwellings of up to five bedrooms; RSIS Table 4.4 at N.J.A.C. 5:21-4.14 sets 1.5 spaces at two bedrooms, 2.0 at three, 2.5 at four and 3.0 at five, framed as the maximum a local reviewer may require. The bite is Lakewood's own note, added by Ord. No. 2017-27, that 'basements shall be considered two bedrooms in determining the number of bedrooms in a dwelling' (habitable attics count as one), so a three-bedroom house computes as five bedrooms once the basement is finished. Above five bedrooms the Township's own table takes over: 3.5 (4 spaces) at six bedrooms, 4.0 (4 spaces) at seven, 4.5 (4 spaces) at eight, 5.0 (5 spaces) at nine and 5.5 (5 spaces) at ten. Required spaces must sit on the same lot as the principal building and measure at least nine by 18 feet, and a one-car garage plus an 18-foot driveway counts as two spaces under the RSIS.

Section 18-910D makes basement apartments 'permitted uses in all residential zones', so outside the A-1 Agricultural Zone and age-restricted communities there is no conditional-use hearing before the Planning Board and no use variance. The route is administrative: section 18-1102A requires a zoning permit from the Zoning Officer, fee $35, before the erection or structural alteration of any building and before any use or change in use, and section 18-1104 has the Zoning Administration Officer grant or refuse permits and certify the completed work after inspection before occupancy. Construction permits follow under the state Uniform Construction Code, which section 18-910H requires the unit to satisfy in full. Before the finished apartment can be leased, section 15-3.3 requires a rental certificate of occupancy from the Department of Code Enforcement and Zoning.

Section 15-3.2 requires the owner of any premises with two or more dwelling units, or any single-family rental, to file a sworn statement with the Department of Code Enforcement and Zoning; section 15-3.3 bars leasing a unit without a certificate of occupancy from that department; section 15-3.6 requires a fresh inspection and certificate within 10 days of each tenant turnover, at $65 with a $30 reinspection fee; section 15-3.7 has the department post the maximum number of permitted occupants in the unit. Section 15-4, added 12-5-2024 by Ord. No. 2024-044 under P.L. 2021, c. 182, adds lead-based paint inspection at turnover or every three years for pre-1978 units, and compliance is a precondition to the rental certificate of occupancy. Chapter 14 rent control reaches any dwelling rented in the Township unless exempt: section 14-1.4d exempts existing housing space put on the rental market for the first time for seven years from its initial certificate of occupancy, and section 14-1.4f exempts buildings with four or fewer rental units only when owner occupied and not part of a complex. Because section 18-910E makes the unit a rental, the code offers no path to sell it separately. The code has zero hits for 'short-term rental'; the nearest regime is section 15-6, which requires a certificate of approval and a mercantile license to run a hotel, boarding house or rooming house and defines 'limited tenure' as residence of no more than 30 days in a calendar year, so nightly-rental plans should be cleared with the Zoning Office first.