House Shows Are They A Valid Home Occupation

Recently I read an article on Lexis through the APA website about a couple who opened their homes to a broad group of friends on weekends for what were considered house shows. The couple were musicians. On a series of weekends they invited people, for a fee, to visit their home and listen to music. Ostensibly the music was performed by the couple living on the property. As part of the show they also sold CD’s of their music. The couple was shut down as being beyond the definition of a Home Occupation. They attempted to change the business model, no longer requiring payment, but rather hosting pot luck meals with donations requested, and CD’s still for sale. This business model also did not pass muster, they were shut down, taken to court and ultimately lost.

Soon thereafter I saw the following article in the Boston Globe (In the house) which illustrated the concept was far more widespread than I had thought. This got me to thinking, is a house show a valid form of home occupation? Why should it be treated differently than the painter, potter or jeweler who produces art for sale? Especially if we allow the painter, potter or jeweler to have a sales area?

Let’s think about it in the case of the folk singers (the shows listed in the Globe article far exceeds the at home musician). They live in the house. They write and produce their own music. They invite people to their homes/studios to “view” and “purchase” their art. How is this any different to a painter who has a studio and gallery?

Mark Bobrowski recognizes the complications of Home Occupation in his Handbook of Massachusetts Land Use and Planning Law, noting:

A home occupation is a slippery concept subject to a wide interpretation. Many ordinances or by-laws that allow home occupations go on to state specific types of activities that qualify for consideration. Even in these instances, a proposed use not specifically listed may result in a controversy.

Bobrowski points out that, in Seaman v. Zoning Board of Appeals, the court held that a realty office was not a home occupation, while no one would argue that a salesman could use their home to line up sales calls or an engineer could not draw plans from the home. Similarly he notes that while a beauty shop may be a home occupation, a barbershop may not be.

A few years back, there was a similar controversy in the Tampa, Florida area. That particular case involved an internet business. No external changes to draw attention to the business, and all the paid employees lived on the property. The business turned out to be an adult use in a residential zoning district. The town involved shut down the business. However, given the common standards applied to home occupations, no exterior signs of a business being the top one, the question would be whether this use was closer to the real estate office or the salesman.

These distinctions clearly generate the idea that, we as planners, need to clearly consider how we approach home occupations. Determine the limits we want to place on business being carried out in residential zoning districts and determine just how involved we want to be in otherwise invisible businesses.

Your thoughts?

Planning and Open Communication

My first full blog post, and my first opinion. Planners, in general, lack public relations skills and know-how. We shy away from having public personna and tend to feel that having an opinion is a dangerous thing.

We need to rise above this. Explore the advantages of finding and using all technology available to us to spread our message. In my own experience I have found that most employers want us to take leadership roles. To express an opinion and provide guidance to a discussion. We just cannot take it personally when an idea we float gets shot down. That’s all part of life, and part of growing in the field. Without planners challenging communities, we would be stuck back in the days of Euclidean Zoning, single use zones everywhere. Entire concepts like Smart Growth, New Urbanism and Form Based Codes would not exist without forward thinking planners to challenge the communities they serve.

However, we also cannot simply sit in our tiny offices talking amongst ourselves or with our board members. We need to find ways of bringing the message to the public. We cannot continue to rely upon the local media to sell our plans. We need to expand. The planning
world needs to embrace the new technologies, bring planning to where the people are. Podcasts linked to ITunes, blogs such as this one in Blogger, MySpace pages and Facebook all need to be tapped into.

Whether you are a grey-haired planner or a new planner still wet behind the ears, the challenges are out there to advance our profession. Remember our message must reach our target audiences. If nothing else, get our there and blog!

Hello World

Welcome to my blog. Many who know me, know that I am planner with an opinion on many things. It is my hope that I can share ideas and opinions in this blog with other planners, both professional and citizen planners, as well as non-planners with an interest in the topics reflected in these pages.

The pages will include discussions of issues that strike me as needing exploration, musings about humerous occurances that we all face, opinions and occasionally small gems of information that I stumble upon in various reports or email lists I subscribe to.

I hope you enjoy the blog, provide me with your thoughts and comments and return often to see what I am going on about. The site comments will be moderated, I want this to remain a somewhat professional blog. I will edit profanity, personal attacks etc. to maintain the integrity of this blog.