Please suggest small towns with innovative live/work zoning laws

June 11, 2008 6:44 PM

What small municipalities have flexible live/work zoning regulations? My town's zoning laws need updating. Please suggest smaller cities that have zoning for live/work spaces, so that I can tell my city councilman what to consider.

I live in a small midwestern college town that has somewhat antiquated zoning laws. Businesses are officially confined to a small central business district and the main streets within a couple blocks of the town's central crossroads. The law, I'm told, is written to allow doctors and lawyers, and no one else, to have home offices anywhere in town. Unofficially there are small businesses scattered amongst residential neighborhoods all over town. Therapists, accountants, craftspeople and the like who work from home have to keep their heads down, can't advertise, etc. A city councilman I know thinks he sees an opportunity to change these laws to accommodate more diverse work-at-home situations, and has asked me (because I'm one of these under-the-radar, work-from-home types) to suggests cities with flexible live-work zoning regulations that we can use as a model. He's especially interested in smaller towns, preferably well under 100K residents. Any help identifying some cities like this would be appreciated.

posted by jon1270 to law & government (5 comments total)

An issue to consider is parking/traffic/foot-traffic. And the status quo. Most people won't like the idea of having all manner of customers invading their peace and quiet. I doubt anyone would mind liberalizing work-at-home businesses where these things wouldn't happen.
posted by gjc at 8:24 PM on June 11, 2008

This is actually incredibly common: here's a list of cities with some mixed-use zoning from California. Just picking one at random, I looked up Petaluma (pop 55,000). One tricky part is that zoning maps are often not available online, so one has to guess what portion of the city is covered, eg, by Petaluma's Compact Single Family Residence District. In that district, permitted accessory uses include "Home occupations, subject to approval by the Zoning Administrator-Director of a home occupation questionnaire and statement to assure compliance with the provisions of Section 21-202" (which I didn't bother to look up).

A bit of political advice, though -- find an ordinance from a neighboring city that people in your town thinks is great, or even wants to emulate. That will go over so much better with the city council than, say, Berkeley, California. Then call them for, or Google up, their zoning code.

If you don't come up with anything, and you are open to an example in the San Francisco Bay Area, please get back in touch, and I'll see what I can come up with.
posted by salvia at 11:49 PM on June 11, 2008

In Olympia WA, where I live, there's a bit extra on the regular business license form specifically for home businesses. When I was president of my neighborhood association, I got a notice whenever a new home business got a license. (We also got all the notices for new buildings/developments and such.)

The particulars are all in the Municipal Code -- go to Chapter 18.04.060(L).

The purpose of the home occupation provisions is to allow for the use of a residential structure for a non-residential use which is clearly an accessory use to the residential use and does not change the residential character of the neighborhood.

I think that's about what you're looking for. It doesn't say which occupations are allowed, just those that are forbidden (restaurants, car repair, etc.), and then how the business should be operated to keep that residential character.

I'm sure the folks at the city (Steve Hall is the city manager, and a really nice guy) would be happy to get your councilman the info he needs on how it works in practice.
posted by epersonae at 8:56 AM on June 12, 2008

You can find a lot by googling "model ordinance XYZ" -- I've been playing around with mixed-use, live-work, and home office, and found these for starters:

Model Mixed-Use Zoning Ordinance (pdf)
Model Live-Work Ordinance (pdf)
-- from the American Planning Association's website

Model Home Office Ordinance (pdf) (would not include craftspeople or people with employees unless it was modified)

These are all pretty different, so you could see what you like and what you don't like in them. For example, the second link is focused on allowing people who are working in commercial and office districts to be able to build a sleeping loft to live in the same building. It's making an all-commercial neighborhood have some residential. You're going the other direction, which is more like the third one there.

Each of the variations between the ordinances has real implications, so you'll want to walk through the entire ordinance to make sure each clause is doing what you want it to do. It's not brain surgery -- you could do this yourself by comparing zoning codes from different cities -- but it does require a willingness to go through it all thoroughly.

No matter what you find, the city attorney, or whoever does these things there, is probably going to write it themselves to fit in with their existing codes. It might turn out to be easier just to change the section that allows home business use but limits it to doctors and lawyers.

If your city council friend wanted to get crazy, you could look into form-based codes, which just regulate what the building looks like. In its purest form, a form-based code would say "the building must have a sloped roof, be 20 feet tall or shorter, and have shutters and a cute front porch," and then if you wanted to smelt metal inside, you could (most cities include some regulations on what you can do in addition). Form-based codes may be something of a fad, and they can take a long time to implement, but I also hear they can work really well.
posted by salvia at 9:47 PM on June 12, 2008

It looks like I and the councilman have a fair bit to chew on here. I really appreciate these leads. Thanks!
posted by jon1270 at 6:46 AM on June 14, 2008