Highland Council updates business-license and home-occupation rules, allows small in-home daycares with parking plans

Highland City Council on April 21 adopted a consolidated update to the municipal business-license code and the development codes home-occupation rules designed to reflect modern practices and close decades-old gaps.

The council voted 5——0 to approve an ordinance that centralizes home-occupation regulations, clarifies definitions, and adds specific rules for mobile businesses, temporary licenses and penalty flows for delinquency or noncompliance. The amendments make explicit when staff may approve or revoke licenses and preserve a council appeal path.

Rob Patterson, the city attorney, told the council the changes are largely cleanup of a 30-year-old code and offered key substantive shifts, including a clear traffic-and-parking standard for home occupations that generate trips: "If you have doubled your trip generation, so normal home generates 10 trips a day. If you've now generated 20 trips a day, that's excessive for a residential zone," Patterson said. He explained staff will require a site-specific parking plan for in-home daycares and in-home instruction and may add conditions to mitigate impacts.

Under the new rules, daycares and in-home instruction are permitted in residential zones on lots of at least 8,000 square feet with 80 feet of frontage, subject to neighborhood notification and a traffic-and-parking plan. Patterson said the reform will allow accessory yard or outbuildings to be used for supervised instruction or daycare play areas, subject to conditions.

Council Member Courtney led a set of council amendments clarifying penalties and appeal timeframes; she said the changes aim to balance flexibility for small, home-based services while protecting neighbors from excessive traffic and commercial use of yards.

Council members praised the streamlining but asked staff how enforcement will work. Patterson said it will be complaint-driven: code compliance will document incidents and staff can revoke a license if conditions are repeatedly breached. "The goal is always to get them into compliance by working with them but if we needed to we could escalate," he said.

The ordinance also adds a mobile-business section to regulate food trucks and other nonstationary businesses, updates solicitor and temporary-license policies, and clarifies renewal-delinquency procedures. Staff said the new language aims to reduce ambiguity, make approval processes faster for routine matters, and provide clearer guidance to residents who operate small businesses from home.

The council adopted the municipal-code amendments and the development-code changes unanimously and directed staff to finalize implementation steps and public education materials.