Home-based business owners in Bradford West Gwillimbury should not panic about new bylaw regulations, members of BWG council told a networking group this week.
“I don’t want to regulate. We need to know what level of tolerance your neighbours can take. You know somebody’s going to push the boundaries,” said Ward 3 Coun. Gary Lamb, at a meeting of Successful Women Always Networking (SWAN) on Tuesday night.
Several councillors, including BWG Mayor Rob Keffer and Deputy Mayor James Leduc, and Ryan Charron of Bradford Board of Trade met with about 10 members of SWAN at the Royal Canadian Legion in BWG to hear concerns from the business owners about proposed zoning bylaw changes for home businesses.
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.
The proposed changes include a number of safeguards, such as hours of operation between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., and deliveries would become mandatory with no customer pickups allowed.
Several home business owners said these safeguards, which were presented during an Oct. 2 public meeting, would actually hinder their business, even potentially shutting them down or costing them thousands of dollars in lost revenue.
Leah Epstein Armstrong, president of eLifestyle.ca, which operates in-home fitness training, often has clients train at her home facility before 9 a.m. and in the evening after they get home from work.
“With these new laws… that would disallow a lot of availability,” she told council members during the SWAN meeting. “This is a commuter town. A lot of people don’t get back to Bradford (until) 6 p.m. Then they have to eat and change.”
She said many people are tired of commuting and have turned to home-based businesses, so the town should be looking to increase resources and support for them instead of adding regulations.
Leduc was quick to defend the town’s standpoint.
“The bylaw was not created to regulate and suppress you,” he said. “We had to start somewhere. We had no idea we had so many (home businesses) in our community.”
Ward 2 Coun. Gary Baynes, who also attended the meeting, said the bylaw for home businesses is “woefully out of date” but asked SWAN members to let council know if the town should, in fact, make no changes.
“It covered Tupperware parties, not leggings parties,” he quipped.
Doreen Johnston, of Good Health Matters, suggested at the meeting that the town consider making different changes to the bylaw for different types of home-based businesses.
“Home-based hair care (is) a thriving business here. I think it’s going to expand here, not diminish,” she said, noting an auto repair business with someone fixing vehicles in their garage is much different than someone with a couple sinks indoors for a salon.
At the end of the day, Lamb said, a person’s house is likely the biggest investment he or she will ever make, so the town wants to make sure people can run businesses properly and allow for their neighbours to still enjoy their properties.
“Protection for homeowners should be paramount. Enjoyment of their own homes should also be paramount,” he said. “We’re not anti-home business. There are appropriate home businesses, and there are inappropriate home businesses.”
Added Keffer: “If your neighbour doesn’t know you have a home-based business, that’s the type of business we want.”
