Emotional Support Animal (ESA) Letters in Passaic, NJ

The most-rented city covered anywhere on this site

Passaic is small: an estimated 70,722 people on 1 July 2024, packed into 21,151 occupied homes. Of those, 16,123 are rented. That is 76.2 percent in the 2020-2024 five-year American Community Survey, and it is the highest renter share of any city covered on this site, ahead of State College, Pennsylvania at 73.9 percent. Among New Jersey’s twenty largest cities, nothing comes close.

It is not a lonely record. Five of the six most-rented cities covered here are in New Jersey (Passaic at 76.2 percent, Newark at 75.6, Elizabeth at 74.4, Paterson at 73.1 and Jersey City at 72.1), with only State College interrupting the run. Set against a statewide figure of 36.2 percent, and against Middletown at 14.3 percent, New Jersey spans 61.9 percentage points from top to bottom, the widest range of any state covered here.

What this means on the ground in Passaic is simple. Almost every housing conversation in this city is a conversation between a tenant and a landlord. The lease is the document that governs, and quite often the lease says no animals.

A no-pets clause is where the argument starts, not where it ends

The Division on Civil Rights, the agency that enforces New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law, states the position on its own housing page: “if a resident with a disability shows that keeping an emotional support animal is necessary to afford them an equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling, the housing provider must permit the emotional support animal, even if they have a ‘no pets’ policy, unless they can show that doing so would be an undue burden.”

Three moving parts there, and it pays to see them separately. You show a disability. You show the animal is necessary for equal use and enjoyment of the home. The landlord, if it wants to say no, has to show undue burden.

DCR’s fact sheet adds the procedural half: your provider “must conduct an individualized assessment of your request.” An across-the-board policy applied without looking at your situation is not an assessment. Nor is a form letter.

What the guidance will not do is promise you an automatic yes, and it says so: “unlike service or guide animals, ESAs are not automatically exempt from a housing provider’s no-pet policies.”

March 2024: the burden moved

For years this was argued in New Jersey without a definitive answer. Then the state Supreme Court gave one.

Players Place II Condominium Ass’n, Inc. v. K.P., 256 N.J. 472 (2024), was decided on 13 March 2024 by a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Rabner writing. It was the first time the Court considered how emotional support animal requests are handled under the Law Against Discrimination.

The framework it laid down is the one every New Jersey landlord is now working under. Residents “must show that they have a disability under the LAD and demonstrate that the requested accommodation may be necessary to afford them an ‘equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.’” And then the sentence that matters most to a tenant in a rented flat: “Housing providers then have the burden to prove the requested accommodation is unreasonable.” Both sides, the Court added, “should engage in a good-faith, interactive dialogue.”

The Court also stripped out the most frequent objection in one flat line: “Whether the animal has been trained is not a relevant consideration.”

That single holding disposes of a lot of what tenants get told. No obedience course. No task training. No documentation of either.

Where the duty actually comes from

It is worth knowing the chain, because a landlord who checks the wrong link concludes there is no duty at all.

The statute, N.J.S.A. 10:5-12(g)(2), forbids discrimination on the basis of disability “in the terms, conditions, or privileges of the sale, rental, or lease of any real property.” It contains no accommodation requirement and mentions no animals.

The requirement is in a regulation the Division wrote: N.J.A.C. 13:13-3.4(f)(2), which makes it unlawful to “[r]efuse to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices or services … when such accommodations or modifications may be necessary to afford a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” The Supreme Court routed emotional support animal requests through that provision. The rule was readopted effective 13 October 2025 and runs to 13 October 2032.

Statute, then regulation, then the Court applying the regulation. Cite the middle one.

What can be charged, and the section that fools people

On money, DCR’s guidance is short: a housing provider “cannot require you to pay an additional security deposit or pet fee, or obtain additional renter’s insurance, in exchange for allowing you to keep an ESA,” although it “may require you to pay for any actual damage the animal causes.”

That is guidance the Supreme Court adopted, not a statute. The distinction matters because New Jersey has a statute that looks like it does the job and does not. N.J.S.A. 10:5-29.2, headed “Housing accommodations,” entitles a person with a disability to “full and equal access to all housing accommodations,” says they “shall not be required to pay extra compensation,” and disapplies no-pets lease clauses. Every word of it is limited to a service or guide dog, and both are defined by training. It is the wrong authority for an emotional support animal, and quoting it invites a landlord to point out why.

Whatever your building charges as a regular security deposit is separately capped by N.J.S.A. 46:8-21.2: an owner “may not require more than a sum equal to 1 1/2 times 1 month’s rental.”

City Hall cannot help with this one

Passaic publishes eleven boards and commissions: among them the Alcoholic Beverage Control board, the Housing Authority Commissioners, the Planning Board, the Redevelopment Agency, Rent Leveling and the Zoning Board of Adjustment. A city with its own rent leveling body has no civil rights or human relations commission, and Passaic County has none either.

That is the norm, not an oversight. N.J.S.A. 10:5-10 lets a mayor appoint a local commission on civil rights, and the powers it grants stop at goodwill, conciliation, recommendations and public education. Investigating a complaint is nowhere in the list. HUD’s roster of certified fair housing partner agencies confirms the same picture from the federal side: New Jersey’s entry names a state agency and no localities at all.

Two doors, then, and both are outside Passaic:

• NJ Division on Civil Rights. The online intake system is NJBIAS, at bias.njcivilrights.gov; the phone line is 1-833-NJDCR4U (833-653-2748). Newark hosts the Northern Regional Office, 31 Clinton Street.
• HUD. The fair housing complaint line is 1-800-669-9777.

Northeast New Jersey Legal Services takes Passaic County matters, along with Bergen and Hudson, and lists housing among its practice areas.

Three deadlines, and one of them belongs to your landlord

N.J.S.A. 10:5-18 sets the state clock: a complaint “must be so filed within 180 days after the alleged act of discrimination.” There is no longer housing version of it in New Jersey.

HUD’s clock is a year, under 42 U.S.C. § 3610(a)(1)(A)(i). That is not foreign law bolted on, N.J.S.A. 10:5-9.2 says the LAD is meant to let the Division “qualify as a ‘certified agency’” under the federal Fair Housing Amendments Act. If six months have slipped past you, ask HUD before you assume it is over.

The third clock is unusual and cuts both ways. N.J.S.A. 10:5-16 provides that once the director finds probable cause, “in a housing discrimination complaint only, any party” may elect to have the claim decided in Superior Court instead of before the agency, and the election “shall be made not later than 20 days after receipt of the finding of probable cause.” Any party means your landlord too. A finding in your favour at the agency can be followed within three weeks by a move into court that you did not choose.

Retaliation, and the letter that carries the weight

In a city where three quarters of households rent, the reason people do not complain is usually fear of what follows. New Jersey addresses that head-on: N.J.S.A. 10:5-12(d) makes it unlawful to take reprisals against anyone who has filed a complaint, testified, sought legal advice about their rights under the Act, or assisted in a proceeding. DCR repeats it in plain language on the fact sheet: “No one can retaliate against you for reporting LAD violations, filing a discrimination complaint, or exercising other rights under the LAD.”

As for what to send your landlord, DCR has drawn that line too: “[d]ocumentation obtained from the Internet that does not come from a treating healthcare professional generally will not be sufficiently reliable to support the need for an ESA.” Training is irrelevant, purchased paperwork is not reliable, and the thing that works is a current letter from the professional who treats you.