INC NEWS - big hole in the UDO needs plugging

[Barry Ragin]

i'd be happy if there were a mechanism to deal with businesses that 
don't actually declare themselves as businesses, like people running 
auto repair shops out of their driveways, or people breeding pit bull 
puppies for sale to the dog fighting trade.

but that's just me.

barry ragin

RW Pickle wrote:
> it may have seemed strange for some of you to read the post from Pat about
> the size of home occupations and the UDO. This is because some of us have
> been talking about it behind your back.
>
> I'm sure we're going to hear from Frank Duke on this, and that's great
> since he has led us down this UDO path, but here is why this hole in the
> UDO needs to be closed.
>
> Currently, under the UDO, a home occupation license allows less than 30%
> of the interior space to utilized for the occupation. You may say, no big
> deal. Well it was over here where I live when that home occupation space
> amounted to being more square footage than any of the business located at
> Forest Hills Shopping Center but Galaxy Foods (the grocery store). Larger
> than a day care facility, a bank, service stations with mechanic pits, a
> hair salon, an insurance company, etc; any of the commercially zoned
> businesses who are located around the outskirts of our neighborhood. (Our
> neighborhood proper has no zoned commercial space within its boundaries)
> But this "home occupation" would have been a 2,700 square feet operation.
> I know some of you are saying "this is larger than my house". And by all
> rights you should say that. And you should also wonder (as we did) how
> something like this could happen smack in the middle of your residential
> neighborhood.
>
> Well it's the hole in the UDO that when we left the old zoning laws behind
> to adopt the UDO, it went from 400 square feet max. to 30%. And over here
> at least, this meant that it could grow to be 2,700 square feet instead of
> the 400 square feet max. Where you have larger older homes, anything like
> this is possible. I use the example of building a new 16,000 square feet
> home. If I knew going in that I was going to run a "home occupation" from
> this new home, I could build it (or convert it in an older home) and end
> up with almost a 5,000 square feet space for a home occupation. This is
> just not acceptable; in my neighborhood or in any other neighborhood in
> Durham. It begins to change the residential character of neighborhoods
> having "home occupations" that utilize this amount of space. As I told
> frank Duke, this is the size of a business, not a home occupation. It's
> way too big for that.
>
> This is why, as a neighborhood organization, we need to work to restrict
> this allowance for space utilization. Otherwise, as I found out over here,
> you have a "business" opening up next door disguised as a home occupation.
> Take this thought back to your neighborhoods and get a notion as to what
> they think. Do we want something that seems incidental like 30%, or do we
> want to adopt something like we have had in the past like 400 square feet.
> Personally I feel we need a cap.
>
> RWP
> 27 Beverly
>
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