After months of work, hours of sometimes-spirited debate, and a number of drafts, Lewes City Council passes an ordinance regulating home-based businesses.
The new ordinance, which passed unanimously, marks an evolution in policy for the city. Rather than creating a list of prohibited home-based businesses, as a previous ordinance did, the new measure focuses on the impact a home-based business will have on nearby neighbors.
What the ordinance does
Home-based businesses fall into one of two categories, low and high impact. Each has different requirements and a different pathway to approval.
Low impact businesses have no employees who do not live on-site, and can only have one customer or client on-site at a time. Approval of those businesses is straightforward.
High impact businesses have more flexibility, but also a more difficult approval process. They can have up to three employees who live elsewhere at the business at any one time, as long as the business provides them with off-street parking. They can also have outdoor storage areas, as long as they are screened. But, high impact businesses also have to go through a longer process for approval, involving a review by the city’s Planning Commission, a public hearing, and a vote from City Council.
High-impact businesses who cannot meet the conditions can still apply, and the City Council has the ability to approve their application. City Solicitor Alex Burns explained that provision was intended to cover circumstances that were not foreseen in the ordinance.
“Maybe there's some sort of unique application that comes through,” he said. “Maybe home-based business only wants to operate at hours that are not expressly included in the code.”
The final draft smooths over disagreements among council members
At Monday’s council meeting, Burns talked members through an updated draft based on council feedback during a sometimes-tense meeting last week. That new draft addressed several concerns raised by council members.
One change focuses on provisions around deliveries which some council members felt were too restrictive. The updated ordinance does away with a limit of one delivery per day for low impact businesses. It also clarifies language around the size of trucks allowed to make deliveries to high impact businesses, effectively banning larger trucks, including semis.
At last week’s meeting, some council members also had objections to requirements that all businesses had to get a fire marshal’s inspection, questioning the need for the smallest businesses to jump through that hoop. Burns told council members that the new draft has an exception for some businesses.
“Low-impact home-based businesses at which no non-resident employees are present and there's no customers, clients, or patients, and there's no use or storage of hazardous materials - they're exempt from going through the city-level requirement to obtain fire marshal review,” Burns explained. Businesses are still subject to state requirements, however.
Council members express support, although some express disappointment with the final product
In contrast to previous discussions of the proposal, council members had little to offer and the ordinance moved quickly to a final vote.
Council Joseph Elder, who defended the need for tighter regulations in last week’s meeting, was supportive of the ordinance.
“I think we've taken a lot of time to look this over,” he said. “We've really taken a lot of public input. I think the adjustments we've made are minor.”
Deputy Mayor Khalil Saliba was outspoken during last week’s meeting, saying that he believed the requirements were too arduous and discouraged home-based businesses from registering. While he supported the ordinance, he made it clear he still finds it to be too restrictive.
“I think this is the best ordinance that we could come up with,” he said. “I continue to think it remains overly burdensome.”
Mayor Amy Marasco, who also supported the measure, echoed that criticism. In her remarks, she noted that home-based businesses are a fast-growing part of the economy and a way to attract younger residents to the city.
