AGENDA #2e(4)
BUDGET WORKING PAPER
TO: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
FROM Roger S. Waldon, Planning Director
SUBJECT: Home Occupation Permits
DATE: May 17, 2000
This memorandum discusses the issue raised at the April 18, 2000, Budget Work Session on renewal of Home Occupation Permits.
BACKGROUND
Home Occupation Permits are Zoning Compliance Permits issued by the Planning Department for the use of one’s dwelling for occupational purposes. Under the Development Ordinance, use of a small portion of a residence for occupational purposes is permitted with a Home Occupation Permit. Standards associated with such a permit are highly restrictive, designed to render the non-residential use virtually indistinguishable from the primary, residential use. The goal is that there should be no external evidence of a home occupation. A copy of the requirements is attached.
Under the adopted schedule of Development Review fees, the cost for submitting a Home Occupation Permit application is $50. Like other Development Review fees, this fee is charged at the time a permit is requested for initiation of use. Once a permit is issued, authorization of the use and space remains in effect without expiration unless conditions change. In the case of a Home Occupation Permit, the permit is issued to the individual resident of the dwelling.
At the April 18, 2000, Budget Work Session it was suggested that because of the likelihood of people relocating, there may not be an accurate count of how many of the presently issued Home Occupation Permits are actually currently used for active home occupations in Chapel Hill. We agree that this is so.
We note, however, that since there is to be no external evidence of a home occupation, there is little effect on a neighborhood as to whether the home occupation is continuing or not. The purpose of the regulation is to allow citizens to work out of their homes, and to do so in a manner that assures minimum impact on their surrounding neighborhood.
If the Council wished to do so, the fee schedule could be changed to require recertification of a home occupation on an annual or biannual basis (or some other time period). Fees for recertification could be charged, but would need to be set to generally meet the costs of recertification and would thus likely be relatively nominal (i.e., in the range of $15 to $25 probably). We have previously reported to the Council that we typically issue 50-60 Home Occupation Permits per year.
The Home Occupation Permits that currently are issued are of a permanent nature, because they run with the land, and we do not believe that these can be changed to have an expiration date requiring renewal at an additional fee. However, we do believe that existing occupations can be required to reconfirm their active status. Failure to reconfirm active status or, in the case of new home occupations established after a fee schedule change were made, failure to renew could result in a Home Occupation Permit being considered to have expired. Under such circumstances a new permit and fee would be required if a home occupation were established.
If annual recertification were required, we would anticipate needing to contact several hundred residents per year, asking them to renew their permits. There would be staff time and cost associated with sending out these notices, receiving payment and issuing a recertification, and following-up on those residents who did not respond. The recertification fee would be set at a level to recover these staff costs. A reasonable estimate would be 100 hours of staff time per year for this function, which could be paid for if a recertification fee were set at approximately $10 (generating revenue of about $3,000 per year to cover the staff cost). It could be that the number of staff hours would be considerably larger than 100, if the mailings were to result in questions and follow-up meetings. It is possible that outside help would be needed (perhaps on a contractual basis) to provide this service.
We note that there currently is no language in the Development Ordinance that speaks to the issue of renewal of a Zoning Compliance Permit, or to reconfirming the active status of an authorized use.
We believe the factors the Council may wish to consider in deciding whether to require recertification of home occupations would include :
The Council has raised the possibility of annual or semi-annual renewal provisions for Home Occupation Permits. This memorandum describes how such a system might work, and suggests that the Council consider the value of the information that would be derived from such a system in comparison to staff and citizen costs that would be involved. The proposed Development Review Fee schedule could be revised to include a provision for new Home Occupation Permits to be renewed annually or every two years, with a fee charged for renewal.