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If you own a home-based business like pottery making, you'll have to follow the city's new ordinance. COURTESY PHOTO
After months of inaction, the Cordell City Council finally revised what it considers a home-based business.
The somewhat controversial issue popped up officially before council in October of last year when the city told a Cordell resident he couldn’t sell items he made from his home. It gave the resident time to seek a variance while at the same time giving itself time to form a subcommittee to examine a new ordinance.
Councilman James Newman, who chaired that subcommittee, presented it to the council during its February meeting.
Highlights of the new ordinance include:
■ No more than three nonresident employees or no more than three clients may be on the site at once. And the home-based business must not generate on-street parking.
■ The business must not result in a substantial increase in traffic.
■ The business must operate exclusively within the residential dwelling. It can’t be visible from the street.
■ It must be compatible with the residential uses of the property.
■ It must remain a secondary use to the site's primary use, which is residential.
■ And it must operate in compliance with all City and County health and safety regulations.
“What was the easiest thing, what was the least intrusive was, as long as it stays in the house, and doesn’t cause extra traffic,” Newman said.
Councilmembers discussed specific language about “nonresident” employees or whether how many should be allowed inside the home.
“Again, it’s not bringing in excess traffic, it’s not doing anything out on the street, or in the public. It’s limited to their house. It’s not a house that you can go rent, it has to be your residence,” Newman said. “You’re constraining everything to your home, so what’s the point limiting what they can do inside of it?”
The cap at three employees or three clients was purposeful.
“It does put a cap on it. You can’t have 15 people working, and if you have 15 people working, it would also bring in excess traffic on the streets, which would violate (the new ordinance) anyway.”
Councilwoman Cheryl Wedel said she didn’t see anything wrong with the current process.
“For years it’s been, if it was a residential property, and if you wanted to do something commercial in your home, you would go and request a hearing for a variance, which would allow that to take place.”
Wedel didn’t see why there was a need to change that procedure, she said.
“That way, you don’t have the neighbors getting upset that a business has been allowed to open up in a house nearby that they didn’t get to have a say so about, either. That’s my two cents worth,” she said.
City attorney Johnny Beech said the council could just eliminate the home occupations listed in the current ordinance.
“You just eliminate those things that can’t be done there, like doctors offices, dentist offices, hairdressers, barbershops, just eliminate that and let them do what they want,” he said.
That would be the only change the council needed to consider, he said.
“That was the problem with this other deal, it was going to be high intensity machinery and stuff like that. If you want to open the flood gate, that’s the easiest way to do it,” he said.
In the end, the council adopted the new homebased business ordinance on a 6-2 vote. Wedel and councilman Steve McLaughlin voted against the new ordinance.