War Zone Homebased BIZ Experiencess fight to put zoning on the national agenda.

Imagine working 16 hours a day, seven days a week to create yourdream business. Then, just as you've got it up and running, ananonymous call to the authorities threatens everything you'vebuilt. That's exactly what happened to Colleen Wolf, whostarted communications and marketing company Wolf Prints Inc. inYorklyn, Delaware, in 1992.

"I had converted a garage into an office," says Wolf."It had a separate entrance and was attached to the house.Then, once it was finished, I put a sign in my front yardadvertising the business."

Within two weeks, Wolf says she got a call from the local zoningoffice saying a complaint had been filed against her and that arepresentative was coming out to investigate whether it was legalto operate the business from her home. "It was shocking,"recalls Wolf. "When I filed for my business license andincorporated the company, at no point did anyone ask me where itwas going to be, nor did they tell me about county codes. I had noindication it might be illegal to operate a business in myhome."

To Wolf's relief, the authorities deemed it legal for her tooperate her business from home and simply instructed her to post asmaller sign. Unfortunately, not all homebased business owners areso lucky.

Common Concerns

What happened to Wolf is not unusual. Homebased business ownersall over the country live in fear of losing their livelihoods, saysSteve Lang, an Evergreen, Colorado, marketing BIZ Experiences andfounder of the Mount Evans Home Based Business Association."We have members who are in fear that someone will show up attheir door one day and say `You can't do that here,' andthey'll be out of business," says Lang.

Inconsistent zoning laws within certain geographic regionscompound the problem, say homebased advocates. For example, countyregulations may differ from homeowner's association rules,leaving business owners unsure about which requirements apply tothem. "You could walk 10 feet down the road and talk tosomeone who is working under entirely different regulations fromthe ones governing you," says Lang.

Wolf experienced a similar situation in Yorklyn. "Delawaresays two types of homebased businesses [are legal] to operate. Oneis a home occupation, which stipulates you cannot have customerscome to the house, have any employees or sell anything from thehouse. It's chiefly designed to support the person who is aconsultant or sales rep working a regional office from home,"says Wolf.

The second option is for professional use, which Wolf sayspermits any person with a business license issued by the state(doctor, engineer, architect, dentist, musician, artist, accountantand so on) to operate a business from home and hire employees.

Wolf's experience helped her understand how easily some ofher homebased marketing clients could be put out of business by acompetitor or even a vindictive neighbor. This realization promptedher to try to get the law changed. One of the first people sheturned to for assistance was Ron Walker of the New Castle CountyChamber of Commerce.

"We'd been encountering a tremendous amount ofdownsizing by the corporate community here," says Walker."These people didn't want to retire yet and had technicalskills, so they found it pretty easy to set up a business at homedoing something related to the expertise they had in the corporateworld."

But there was one problem, says Walker: "They wereoperating illegally. It was time to bring it out of the closet.These are legitimate businesses that represent a significantbusiness segment."

Several homebased business roundtable groups lined upsupporters--the few homebased business owners willing to gopublic--as well as someone in the city zoning department who wrotea proposed ordinance allowing homebased businesses to hire up totwo employees and conduct business on the premises.

A small-business and community hearing was held in July 1996with a follow-up workshop in September 1996, and the outcry Wolfencountered amazed her. "The arguments we heard were thatallowing this would change the integrity of the residentialneighborhood," she says. "That homebased businesses wouldlitter their yards with signs, clog the streets with cars and makenoise at all times of the night." Wolf says she got a sensefrom many opponents that they just did not care about the peoplewho wanted to operate homebased businesses.

Opponents saw the situation from a different perspective, saysFrances West, immediate past president of the Council of CivicOrganizations of the subdivision Brandywine Hundred. "Theordinance was really introduced without any sort of review of howit would sit with the community," says West, who was notconvinced the ordinance was needed.

What West's organization and other critics wanted was toprevent neighborhoods like those in older communities in the countyfrom disintegrating into "crummy mixed-use locations,"she says.

This image of the homebased business is simply not a reality,says Lang. The advent of technology has drastically changed thetype of companies being operated at home, and legislation exists inmost communities to prevent abuses.

Elections interrupted the fight to change the ordinance in NewCastle, and a six-month moratorium was placed on all land-useissues following the elections. "At this point, we have nodirection," says Wolf. "It's hard to get people tocampaign when just exposing themselves could cost them theirbusinesses. So until we get a councilperson willing to presentordinance reform, I don't know what's going tohappen."

Making It Work

The situation is more optimistic for home businesses in otherareas of the country. In New Jersey, for instance, homebasedbusiness advocates were able to get a bill introduced in the statelegislature that says local governments cannot stop people fromworking in their homes for pay without specifically citing anypossible detrimental impact on the community. According to ChrisHansen, founder of the Home Based Business Council Inc., one of theorganizations pushing the legislation, the bill passed in the Houseand is pending in the Senate. The issue will probably be put onhold until after the November elections, Hansen says.

What has made New Jersey's effort so successful, believesthe Neptune City computer-supply business owner and former citycouncil president, is the network of people that joined forces tosupport the legislation. After two years of networking around thestate, Hansen helped establish the Partnership for Work at Home inSeptember 1996, made up of the director of the New Jersey Divisionof Economic Development, representatives from the New Jersey Leagueof Municipalities, members of the Home Based Business Council anddepartments of state government.

"As part of the partnership, I authored homebased businesszoning guidelines and went to the New Jersey League ofMunicipalities convention, stopping everyone I could and puttingthe guidelines in their hands," says Hansen. "Most peoplewanted to know how to embrace homebasedbusinesses without destroying the quality of the residentialneighborhood. When you say business, people see smokestacks,tractor trailers, pollution and flashing neon signs. None of themunicipal leaders want that."

As Hansen and supporters stumped around the state, that was theimage they sought to dispel. "We told municipal leaders thevast majority [of homebased businesses] are benign orbeneficial," he says. "They don't pollute, and theybuy locally."

Wolf believes that the positive economic and environmentalimpact of homebased businesses is often ignored by opponents."What does it mean to us as a country for people not to driveto work every day, to take those cars off the road? What does thatmean for pollution?" she asks. "I provide a service to mylocal community that they would have to drive to [a nearby city]for."

Job creation is another factor Wolf believes many don't takeinto consideration. "In my fifth year, I created one job, andby next year I expect to add two more people," she says. Shealso expects to surpass the six-figure mark in annual sales thisyear, which will in turn provide her local community with more taxrevenue.

If the growth of homebased business continues at its currentpace and the zoning issue is not sufficiently addressed, cityofficials could find themselves mired in a mountain of complaintsthat could take many years and thousands of dollars to resolve.

Aiming For Change

If it's illegal to operate a homebased business in your cityor county, there is something you can do to change things.Following are some steps you can take to change the zoning laws inyour area.

1. Establish a committee of homebased business owners willing tostand up and be counted. Get mentally prepared for criticism fromevery corner and the chance that your business could be shutdown.

2. Find out what the zoning regulations are in neighboringcommunities, particularly those similar in character and size toyours. If operating a homebased business is legal in these areas,it could lend credence to your arguments. If no communities in yourarea have enacted such an ordinance, contact a city withcharacteristics similar to yours that has.

3. Contact your zoning department to see if it has receivedcomplaints about illegally operated homebased businesses. Dependingon your findings, you could use the results to prove that homeoffices are quiet and do not cause problems or to pinpoint a needto legalize home occupations and free up zoning inspectors tohandle more important infractions.

4. Do your research. Get local and national statistics on howmany BIZ Experiencess are working from home; describe who they are andwhat types of businesses they operate. If possible, find out howmany people in your community have business licenses, what theiraverage annual sales are, and how much local, state and federaltaxes they pay. This will allow you to present data showinghomebased business owners as people contributing to the economicfoundation of the city. You might also want to highlight anyone whois the only local provider of a particular service.

5. Once you've assembled a research arsenal, use thisinformation to build a coalition that will support a homeoccupation ordinance. This committee should include homebasedbusiness owners, major corporations that use the services ofhomebased consultants, government officials, homeowner'sassociations, labor unions, the head of the county zoningdepartment and anyone else with a vested interest.

6. Remember, your goal is to educate first and then mobilize thecommunity to support homebased BIZ Experiencess.

Contact Sources

Brandywine Hundred, 911 Darley Rd., Indian Field,Wilmington, DE 19810, (302) 475-8154

National Home Office & Business OpportunitiesAssociation, 92 Corporate Park, Ste. C250, Irvine, CA 92606,(714) 589-3232

The Homebased Business Council Inc., (732) 776-6496,http://www.hbbc.org

Mount Evans Home Based Business Association, fax: (303)670-9629, elkbugle@aol.com

New Castle County Chamber of Commerce,P.O. Box 11247,Wilmington, DE 19850, (302) 737-4343

Wolf Prints Inc., (302) 234-4440,cwolf@wolfprints.com