Not all home businesses are the same in Fredonia

Running a business out of a home in the Village of Fredonia has picked up parameters that officials say were needed.

The Village Board last month approved an ordinance addressing home occupations  that Administrator Christophe Jenkins said “more clearly defines” them.

The ordinance breaks down businesses into two categories, low and moderate intensity.

Low-intensity occupations, such as a sourdough bread maker, are ones in which there’s “no way it’s going to interfere with the neighbors,” Jenkins said.

For those, “you just can do it,” he said. “We don’t need to know, it’s not our prerogative as a village. By right of owning your home, you have the ability to do that.”

Moderate-intensity occupations “that may use machinery or appliances that might cause some sort of residential dwelling to have a risk of noise or vibration” require another step, Jenkins said.

Business owners must apply for a conditional use permit that sets rules for the occupation.

“That gives wide-ranging flexibility to the village and the Plan Commission to decide if a CNC business is going to operate, what are the hours of operation, what are going to be the noise levels and things like that,” Jenkins said.

The ordinance, he said, “provides a path forward” for those types of occupations, something the old ordinance did not do.

The Plan Commission held a public hearing on the ordinance and recommended its approval to the Village Board.

Discussion of the issue started when a resident was trying to run a computer-numerical controlled business out of his home, but the village ordinance didn’t allow it, Jenkins said. The Board of Appeals denied the man’s proposal.

The ordinance includes:

• No more than one employee who doesn’t live at the residence.

• Using a maximum of 25% of the habitable living area for the business.

• No storage or display of goods or vehicles; only an unlighted sign is allowed on the property.

• The business may use the home or a permanent outbuilding.

• No in-person retail sales except picking up preorders.

• Vehicular or pedestrian traffic generated won’t be in greater volume than the business’ principal use.

• Restrictions on noise, emissions, radiation, vibration, heat, glare, dust, fumes, smoke and electrical interference.