The Brown County Area Plan Commission is starting to draft new “performance standards” for people who wish to run businesses out of their homes.
The new standards — which could regulate noise, traffic and other details that could affect neighbors — could replace the “home occupation” rules currently in place in the county’s zoning ordinance.
A few people who’ve been involved in the discussion so far believe that these varying procedures could make it confusing for people to know whether or not the business they want to operate is legal, and may dissuade them from operating that business here at all — representing a missed opportunity for Brown County to attract and retain residents and business-related taxes.
Jim Schultz, who runs a permitted home-based business and is also on the Brown County Redevelopment Commission (RDC), has been a leading voice in this conversation. The RDC is charged with raising the “top line” of the county budget: revenue, mostly from taxes, which can be assessed on businesses and residents. Fewer residents and businesses means a higher tax burden on everyone if the local government is to provide the same level of services it does now, he said.
However, APC member Randy Jones isn’t sure if the APC should take an outright pro-business position. “That’s a slippery slope. As a planning commission, I don’t think we should be promoting anything,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a statutory requirement for us to be doing that. … But I don’t think we should be acting as a real impediment either by having really ponderous restrictions and limitations on land usage.”
He did, though, see a need to simplify the current ordinance that governs home occupations. The zoning ordinance hasn’t been really overhauled since the late ‘80s, and it still mentions telegraphs, millineries and other business terms that no longer have a place in modern society.
Jones was one of the APC members who suggested creating “performance standards” for business owners who wanted to operate in residential areas rather than having different rules for different types of businesses.
“We could come up with a general definition … do away with specific examples, lay out some performance standards, and if you meet those, you meet the definition of a home occupation, and as long as you meet those, you should be OK,” Jones said.
“I feel more of a responsibility to maintain the integrity of the residential areas than I do in allowing home occupancy (for a business),” he said.
“To make sure that the home occupancy does not interfere with the neighbor next door,” added APC member Carol Bowden.
Zoning law enforcement primary operates based on complaints, said APC attorney David Schilling.
“Let’s say you have an auto repair shop (operating out of your home) … but you’re a good neighbor and your neighbors don’t care … so they don’t report it. … If you’re a good neighbor, you can violate the zoning ordinance all the time,” he said.
The point of creating standards should be to promote compatibility among the different types of activities happening in a neighborhood, he said. If that compatibility is happening without having to strictly enforce the standards, great.
“For example, if you have a technical violation that’s not really creating a problem for anybody and you take that to the court, a judge is going to say, ‘Who’s really being harmed by that?’ and you say, ‘It violates this piece of paper,’ a judge would typically say, ‘Quit wasting my time,’” Schilling said.
The commission also briefly discussed at the August meeting whether or not home occupations should be allowed in LR (lake residence)-zoned areas. Right now, under county ordinance, businesses are not permitted to operate out of homes on LR-zoned land. Some lake neighborhoods, such as Cordry-Sweetwater, also have homeowner covenants that restrict the use of homes in the area for business uses.
Lake neighborhoods could still make stricter rules than the county’s if they wanted.
The next work session on this topic is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24 at the County Office Building in Nashville.
