Allow Group Home Child Day Care Businesses to Operate in Residential Homes

Under the current, but soon to be changed zoning ordinance, Group Home Day Care Businesses are allowed to operate with in a residential home. This service is a great asset to the local community. It allows parents to keep their children close to their home or workplace with someone they feel comfortable with at an affordable price.

This service is especially important to the local area because of the lack of options parents have to take their children to for care. The real need that is evident is space for infants. Waiting lists for local care are averaging a year or longer. The reason being if a small family daycare watches one infant they may only watch four total children. This makes it impossible to provide care for infants in a cost efficient manner. By allowing Group Daycares to operate as before, care can be provided for up to 10 children with one infant in a residential home. This will keep costs down and stop waiting lists from growing longer than what they already are.

The new zoning ordinance will now consider a Group Daycare a commercial enterprise, which will make overhead costs too great to operate in an affordable manner. Let's allow these businesses to operate as they were in the old zoning ordinance, so they can continue to provide a valued service to the local community.