Students living or moving off campus should be aware of three ordinances moving through the Ewing Township Council regarding noise, nuisance and rental properties.

The Council approved the ordinances at its Feb. 10 meeting and will hold a public hearing on the ordinances at its next meeting on Feb. 24, Ewing Township Mayor Jack Ball said.

The noise ordinance also has to go before the Department of Environmental Protection for approval.

The ordinances will take effect upon their final approval.

“All three of the ordinances are really meant to preserve and protect the overall quality of life, safety, health and welfare of all of the residents, but at the same time, letting property values remain in tact and not (be) lessened,” Ball said.

“These ordinances also help to provide safe housing for students, especially for students at (the College) and Rider (University) that inhabit a lot of these rental properties.”

Loud music is one of the disturbances addressed in the noise ordinance.

“Vehicular music amplification or reproduction equipment” should not be “operated in such a manner that is plainly audible at a residential property line between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.,” the ordinance said.

During that time, portable, hand-held or other personal music equipment may not be plainly audible to anyone but the operator.

During the day, the same music cannot be plainly audible at a distance of 50 feet in any direction from the operator.

The same range applies to personal music equipment.

The nuisance ordinance, which was created “to protect and promote the public health through the control, abatement and prevention of nuisances of a Public Health Concern,” as written in the ordinance, raised the maximum penalty for each offense in violation of the ordinance to $2,000.

The minimum penalty is $50.

The nuisance ordinance covers such public-health issues as pollution, growth of weeds or poison ivy and accumulation and disposal of trash or solid waste.

The rental ordinance regulates the registration of rental units in Ewing, including those rented by many students at the College.

Each rental unit must be “registered, inspected and licensed annually and upon each change in occupancy,” the ordinance said.

Each occupant’s name, age and address must be included on the registration form, among other information.

The ordinance requires that owners or landlords provide each occupant or tenant a copy of the registration form and that the maximum number of occupants in a rental unit be posted in the unit.

“It shall be unlawful for any person, including the owner, agent, tenant or registered tenant to allow a greater number of persons than the posted maximum number of occupants to sleep in or occupy overnight the rental unit for a period exceeding 21 days,” the ordinance said.

These ordinances come shortly after the New Jersey Superior Court overturned previous Ewing ordinances that had been put in place to control rental properties and seemed to target College students.

The Superior Court “targeted two 2004 ordinances that limited the number of people who could be housed in college rentals and required more living space and parking spaces per renter, as well as a 2000 ordinance that allowed police to enter private homes and arrest unchaperoned underage drinkers,” according to a January 13 Trenton Times article.

According to a statement in the rental ordinance, Ewing has sought reconsideration of the state court’s decision.

The number of students that can inhabit a facility is set by a code official, and is based on the state building code, which takes the size of bedrooms, common areas and the house in general into consideration.

“One of the reasons that our last ordinance was thrown out was because our requirements were greater than the (state building code),” Ball said.

Ball said the township is not trying to target students in these ordinances.

“I want these young people to be in safe living conditions,” he said. “We are just trying to keep quality of life for residents of Ewing Township, whether they are rental people or home owners.”

He added, “Everybody deserves peace and tranquility.”

Kelli Plasket can be reached at plasket2@tcnj.edu.