Home-business outlaws: archaic zoning laws prohibiting home businesses are finally changing - includes related article on Chicago's changing zoning laws - Watchdog

Home Office Computing, Feb, 1993 by Mary McAleer Vizard

This article marks the beginning of a new department, Watchdog, which will focus on legal, political, and social issues of importance to home-office workers.

Across the country, millions of home-business owners are forced to lead undercover lives. They are justifiably fearful that if they operate in the open and inform their neighbors or local authorities of their business, they could run up against local zoning laws that prohibit such enterprises.

This was aptly demonstrated during a recent Home-Based Business Expo, at Elgin Community College, near Chicago. About 60 entrepreneurs chose to list only their phone numbers--not addresses--in the Expo's directory. "Some of them are doing business in 'no home business' zoning districts," said Hilma Nelson, a work-at-home graphic designer who lives in an area of Elgin that allows such home-based business activity. She is also founder of the Home-Based Business Owners' Group, the sponsor of the expo. "People don't want to be found out," Nelson said.

The city of Elgin, like many other communities across the country, is now engaged in an ongoing debate about liberalizing its home-business ordinance to permit homebased businesses in previously restricted zones, but such a move is not without controversy. Residents fear that permitting home businesses could disrupt the tranquillity of residential neighborhoods and turn them into commercial zones.

Among the issues the Elgin City Council has grappled with are how many people can be allowed to visit a home office in a day and how many vehicles can be used in conjunction with a home-based business. The proposed wording is, "No more than eight visitors associated with the residential-based occupation shall be allowed within a 24-hour period. No more than two such visitors shall be allowed to visit at the same time."

As to vehicles, the council has proposed "No more than one motor vehicle shall be used in connection with a residential occupation," and "Such vehicle shall be limited to customary and traditional private passenger motor vehicles."

"These kinds of rules make no sense to me," said Terri Murphy, a Realtor in Chicago, who works from home herself. "My mother has more people than that coming over for coffee."

Nevertheless, concern over traffic was the main reason Evelyne Simon, a management consultant, was recently put out of business. Last year, as she began setting up her home office in New Rochelle, New York, a suburb of New York City, some neighbors started to complain about increased traffic and parking around her house. The city's zoning commission informed Simon that since there was no provision for a management consultant in the city's home-business ordinance, she would have to shut down.

New Rochelle's ordinance, which was written in 1921 and underwent a major revision in 1955, does allow for the offices and studios of architects, artists, lawyers, doctors, milliners, as well as dance and music instructors.

Simon's attorney argued before the zoning commission that a management consultant "would certainly affect the neighborhood far less than the practice of physicians, lawyers, and dentists who are regularly visited by patients and clients, and music and dance instructors who are explicitly permitted groups of four students."

Even the city's director of buildings, Louis Goodman, concedes that the code needs updating. "With archaic businesses such as milliners still on the books,"

says Goodman, "obviously the code needs to better reflect the times."

In the past, municipalities like New Rochelle used a laundry list of permitted occupations. With advances in technology and the creativity of home-business operators, it is practically impossible to predict what new professions might arise. As a result, most new ordinances simply set standards for how large a business can be and what effect it can have on a neighborhood.

The Simon case, which is still pending, highlights the evolving nature of home business and its impact on zoning issues, as such disputes are taking place in large and small cities across the country.

CHICAGO AND L.A.: WARMING UP

The city of Chicago technically prohibits all home business. It allows only professional consultation or emergency treatment in home offices. The reality is that full-time businesses are in operation in residential areas all over the city. "Lots of people operate businesses regardless of what the ordinance says," said Graham C. Grady, the city's zoning administrator. "It's rarely enforced unless a neighbor complains."

In the last few years, a growing constituency began asking the city to liberalize the law. Spearheading the effort was Ida Bialik, owner of the Women in Business Yellow Pages of Metro Chicago. "The people I talk to don't want to hide anymore," she says. "At first the city was totally unresponsive, but once Illinois Bell started allowing employees to work from home, the city knew that the work environment had changed dramatically."

She and others eventually managed to persuade the zoning department to rewrite its ordinance to allow a wide variety of home businesses with certain limitations. A draft of the proposed ordinance is now circulating to interested parties for their input. It is expected to go before the city council as this article goes to press.