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Commission approves staff-level review for routine home-occupation visits
Summary
Commissioners supported rewriting home-occupation rules so staff can approve limited customer visits during business hours without requiring planning-commission action, and asked staff to create consistent evaluation criteria.
As part of a broader package of code edits, staff proposed a narrower conditional-use approach for home occupations so routine customer visits would not automatically require planning-commission review.
Caden said current language that prohibits customers from visiting in connection with home occupations was overly restrictive in common-day cases such as music lessons or small-scale bakers. The proposed change would allow a limited number of customer visits during regular business hours when those visits remain incidental to residential character and create no impacts beyond normal residential use.
Commissioners signaled support for the more flexible, staff-led approach but asked that staff develop a written checklist or matrix to ensure consistent treatment across applicants. One commissioner recommended defining 'regular business hours' and a per-day visitor limit to avoid perceived favoritism by staff reviewers.
Next step: staff will add evaluation guidance and return the revised language for action, while retaining conditional-use review for larger or impact-generating home occupations.
