Several home-based business owners in Bradford West Gwillimbury say they will be out of a job or lose thousands of dollars in regular income if the town moves ahead with proposed zoning bylaw changes.
The town is considering a change to a legal grey area in its bylaws to allow more home businesses, including music and swimming lessons, medical practitioners, fitness instruction, and catering.
However, the changes, which include some proposed safeguards, are “absolute nonsense,” said Ben Simon, who teaches guitar lessons from his home in BWG.
“The town councillors are very much downplaying this by saying, ‘It's just a proposal.’ The problem is that home businesses were not consulted at all. We still haven't been,” he said. “Upon emailing them, councillors seem to side with the community on this, but it very much seems like it would have slid right through had nobody made a fuss about it.”
BWG council received a staff report outlining proposed changes to the home business zoning bylaw at a public meeting Oct. 2. Members of the public were invited to share their concerns or questions.
The meeting was called after council directed staff in June to start a public consultation process about the changes.
Some items, such as adding catering, were put in the report for consideration after local residents approached the town about starting those kinds of home businesses, according to the staff report.
Other businesses, such as music lessons, have always been permitted as long as the bylaw is respected, but they were added to this report to formalize them and stop people from starting commercial schools.
Fitness instruction was a legal grey area because the current bylaw states all home businesses must be operated within the main dwelling, so a job teaching backyard swimming lessons, for example, is technically not permitted.
In the latest staff report submitted to council on the issue, a number of proposed safeguards are listed “to be mindful and respectful of (property) owners by reducing possible nuisance created by home occupations in the evenings when residents traditionally return home.”
Hours of operation would be 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The main safeguard Simon has a problem with, however, is that home businesses would be required to operate between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. But he has to wait until people get home from work before he is able to start working, so that does not leave him much time.
“Right now, I work until 9:30 p.m. Though I do teach some lessons during the day, I don't truly begin work until after 4 p.m. simply because that is when school kids usually are out,” he said.
“It is incredibly concerning to me to have the cut off so early in the afternoon/night. Not only are these the prime time hours for business, but it is the prime time opportunity for kids to be able to participate in something outside of school.
“To eliminate the ability to work these regular hours is a detriment to both the small home-based business owner, and those directly positively impacted by the business owner. If this goes into effect, I have to seriously consider whether teaching guitar will be feasible in this town.”
Simon said he would lose $8,000 in annual income if he followed the new rule for just two days a week, and more than $15,000 if he followed it for four days.
“As a 24 year old, I cannot simply throw away that kind of money,” he said.
“You can see why businesses are panicking about this, and, in my perspective, they should panic and get vocal. The fact that this idea of an amendment was thrown in there before the town even talked about it through surveys or personal phone calls to home businesses, etc., is absolutely terrifying.”
During the Oct. 2 public meeting, after listening to a couple concerns from local residents, Coun. Gary Baynes said he was in favour of changing the hours of operation for home businesses to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Mayor Rob Keffer added it is a good idea to talk to local business groups, such as Successful Women Always Networking (SWAN) and the Bradford Board of Trade, to get their feedback.
Deliveries mandatory, pickups banned
The 7 p.m. cut off is also a problem for Natasha Philpott, who sells SweetLegs leggings out of her BWG home.
As a mother of two boys, aged 3 ½ and five months, who is currently on maternity leave, she said she finds it difficult to leave the house, so she depends on customers being able to pick up their orders.
Philpott leaves the orders in a bin on her porch for customers to pick up whenever they are able, and that is often between 5:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. because many of them work until 5 p.m. and commute, she said.
Another part of the problem is that, under the proposed safeguards, deliveries would become mandatory with no picking up allowed.
“If we’re not allowed to have people pick up at my house, I’d pretty much be out of business,” Philpott said, adding she does not want the town to make any changes to its home business zoning bylaw.
“(The 7 p.m. cut off is) going to affect everybody because we’re a commuter town,” she said. “There are a lot of stay-at-home moms and people who run home businesses (in Bradford). This would really hurt us and probably put a lot of us out of business.”
Number of students limited
Shari Goss, who sells Norwex cleaning supplies out of her BWG home, said she also offers pickup to customers to help them save on shipping.
“I’ll lose business” if pickups are no longer allowed, she said.
Another issue Goss has with the proposed safeguards is the number of students for on-site teaching would be limited to a maximum of five at one time and no more than 20 during a 24-hour period.
She said she often hosts parties where potential customers can check out products and get instruction on how to use them. Oftentimes, more than 25 people will show up to one of these parties, she said.
Philpott also holds parties to sell her products and said about 10 people typically attend, or 20 people if she is co-hosting with another local business owner.
“I don’t think they really understand how much this affects business,” Goss said, adding she wants council to meet with local home-based business owners.
“I like that it is being regulated, (but) this is painting with too wide of a brush.”
The new council voted in after this month’s municipal election is expected to consider next steps for this issue in early 2019.
Read the full report outlining all the changes online.
