SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

ASSEMBLY, No. 5130

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  JUNE 26, 2025

      The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee reports favorably Assembly Bill No. 5130.

      As reported, this bill requires an enforcing agency to conduct an inspection of construction in a two and a half hour time window (time window); establishes a complaint process for an owner, agent, or other responsible person in charge of work to file a complaint on the Department of Community Affairs’ (department) Internet website for violations of the bill; and authorizes the department to, after confirmation of a violation or violations, take corrective action, including the issuance of penalties, pursuant to the State Uniform Construction Code Act. 

     Specifically, the bill requires an enforcing agency to notify, in writing, the owner, agent, or other responsible person in charge of work, of the time window, during which the enforcing agency will conduct the inspection.  The bill requires the notice to be provided within 24 hours of receiving a request for an inspection, and not later than 24 hours prior to the start of a time window set for an inspection.  The enforcing agency and inspector are to be subject to a complaint, brought at the discretion of the owner, agent, or other responsible person in charge of work, which is to be filed on the department’s Internet website, if the enforcing agency:

     (1)   fails to perform the inspection within the time window;

     (2)   fails to provide notice that the enforcing agency is unable to perform a requested or scheduled inspection;

     (3)   fails to perform inspections on the dates of, or during the time windows for, inspections on repeated instances;

     (4)   cancels an inspection on repeated instances sufficient to notably disrupt construction or completion; or

     (5)   is delinquent in the discharge of the enforcing agency’s duties pursuant to the State Uniform Construction Code Act or the State Uniform Construction Code.

     The bill requires the Commissioner of Community Affairs to establish a complaint system, and in response to a complaint, after

the department’s confirmation of the violation or violations, the bill requires the department to take corrective action against the enforcing agency, including the issuance of penalties. 

     Further, the bill requires the enforcing agency to notify the owner, agent, or other responsible person in charge of work no less than 24 hours prior to the start of the time window, that the enforcing agency is unable to perform the inspection within the allowed timeframes.  The bill also requires each enforcing agency to establish a process for ensuring that the enforcing agency performs the inspection within the time window, or provides notice 24 hours prior to the start of the time window.

      This bill is to take effect on the first day of the third month following the date of enactment, except the Commissioner of Community Affairs is to be permitted to take anticipatory action necessary to effectuate the provisions of the bill.

      As reported by the committee, Assembly Bill No. 5130 is identical to Senate Bill No. 4128, which was also reported by the committee on this date.

FISCAL IMPACT:

      The Office of Legislative Services (OLS) finds that the bill would result in an indeterminate amount of upfront costs for the Department of Community Affairs to develop a system on its website where certain construction inspection violations can be reported. The magnitude of these costs would depend on operational decisions made by the department, including whether the system is developed in house or by a third party.

      The department will also incur an indeterminate amount of annual costs to investigate reported violations of the notification and inspection requirements of the bill. The size of these annual costs would depend on the number of alleged violations that are investigated in a given year, and the OLS lacks the informational basis to estimate how numerous such complaints will be and what workload and staffing changes might be necessary to investigate the violations.

      Municipal enforcing agencies could incur additional annual costs under the bill to the extent that they need to hire additional personnel or make administrative changes to their current inspection processes to ensure that inspections are conducted on time and that all required notifications are sent out in accordance with the provisions of the bill. The OLS cannot predict what changes local governments, if any, would have to make to arrive at an estimate for any potential cost increase.