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'Child care home' definition eased

Goshen News - 6/20/2018

June 20--GOSHEN -- Goshen Plan Commission members Tuesday gave their nod of approval to a proposed change to the city's zoning ordinance that if approved would ease the restrictions on what constitutes a child care home within the city.

During their meeting, commission members heard a request by the Goshen City Council for a text amendment to the Goshen Zoning Ordinance calling for various updates to the definition and conditional use for child care homes.

"The proposed changes all relate to Child Care Home, which is a conditional use, which means that it's permitted provided certain requirements are met in addition to those of the underlying zoning district," Rhonda Yoder, planning and zoning administrator for the city, said of the request.

According to Yoder, the first change proposed involves a change to the actual definition of a child care home.

As currently written, a child care home is defined as a residential structure, which is the legal residence of the provider, in which at least six children (not including the children for whom the provider is a parent, stepparent, guardian, custodian or other relative) at any time receive child care from a provider licensed by or registered with state or local government.

"So right now, the definition says the residential structure must be the legal residence of the provider," Yoder said. "That's proposed to be changed to an occupied residential dwelling unit, legal residence of the occupant. So that means it has to be occupied, but it can be occupied by anyone."

Also proposed as part of Tuesday's request were a number of additional changes to the conditional use for child care homes.

"The first change is to add A-1 as a permitted district, and the reason for that is that there are residential dwellings in the A-1 district," Yoder said. "We don't have a lot of agricultural zoning, but we do have some, and there are homes there that could have a child care home. So it's just being added as an option."

Per the ordinance, child care homes are currently only permitted in the R-1, R-1S, R-2, R-3 and R-4 residential districts, the B-1 and B-2 commercial districts, and the PUD District, provided they meet a number of home occupation provisions.

Rounding out the requested changes to the conditional use was a call to remove the requirement that a child care home meet all the outlined home occupation provisions, and adding two additional provisions specific to child care homes. Those two provisions include:

--Requiring that the child care home use be subordinate to the use of the dwelling unit as a residence; and

--Stipulating that in addition to other permitted signs, the child care home be permitted one non-illuminated wall sign, no larger than 2 square feet in area, flush mounted on the residential dwelling unit.

"So what the changes do is keep the residential use primary, but provide some flexibility in not requiring occupancy by the child care home provider," Yoder explained.

Satisfied with the proposed changes, commission members voted unanimously to forward the request back to the Goshen City Council with a favorable recommendation. The council will then vote on whether to adopt the proposed changes during a future meeting.

John Kline can be reached at john.kline@goshennews.com or 574-533-2151, ext. 315. Follow John on Twitter @jkline_TGN

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