One discussion point is whether retail operations, which allow all sorts of goods, should be allowed.
EVERETT — The city sees an opportunity to expand local goods and foster entrepreneurship by widening what kinds of at-home businesses can operate.
The City Council is set to make a few decisions on this at its Wednesday, Sept. 8 meeting.
The proposed rule changes would newly allow clinics, barber/beauty shops, real estate offices and offices that receive visits from clients, such as architects, lawyers or insurance agents. Child care is already allowed.
The proposed rules would allow up to 10 client visits per day, and home businesses would be allowed to have up to two non-resident employees working at the home business.
Council members have expressed hesitancy to allowing home-based retail and merchandise sellers. They are concerned about street traffic and on-street parking use in neighborhoods.
Another hang-up for some council members is allowing retail would require allowing gun and ammunition sales as at-home businesses.
“State law requires if we allow retail sales we have to allow firearm sales,” city attorney David Hall said Aug. 18.
City Council President Brenda Stonecipher called it objectional to allow firearm retail sales within a residential neighborhood.
Marijuana businesses couldn’t bloom because state and local regulations nix marijuana sales from areas zoned residential.
The city thinks many at-home retailers would be craft sellers or custom product makers, city economic development director Dan Eernissee said.
Councilman Scott Murphy said he supports the overall idea of home businesses but has concerns on the impacts of having retail sellers in single-family neighborhoods.
Former city planner Dave Koenig, too, supports the general idea, but not retail. Koenig sent written comments that say allowing two employees in the business plus “allowing two customers at a time and 10 customers per day would overwhelm residential areas with vehicles.” One concern Koenig raised in his letter to City Council is that at-home businesses do not have minimum parking requirements like a storefront (these are people’s driveways).
Every home business would be operated by the residents who live in the house.
The businesses can only operate from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays.
Allowing up to two non-resident employees is to help small businesses “scale up” easier before the leap to operating from a commercially leased space, Eernissee explained. Currently under the code, hiring your first employee triggers the requirement to move the business to a commercial building.
Outdoor manufacturing would stay prohibited. Homeowners can’t use their yard to warehouse merchandise.
Numerous other cities allow at-home businesses. One is Monroe.
The City Council will vote Sept. 8. It was set to vote Sept. 1, but the timeline was pushed out a week after the council posed many questions during the Aug. 18 meeting that would take time to address, city spokeswoman Kimberley Cline said.
“The council asked a number of thoughtful questions that would take a bit longer than the few days between meetings to properly address,” Cline wrote in a statement when asked about the delay. “Two of the significant ones included a request for more information about how peer jurisdictions handle home occupations, including any review or permitting processes, and a request for a deeper look into potential unintended consequences from retail sales, including options for requiring retail sales to be accessory to a different home occupation.”
