City Council

City of Salem, Massachusetts “Know Your Rights Under the Open Meeting Law, M.G.L. c. 30A ss. 18-25 and City Ordinance Sections 2-2028 through 2-2033.” The City Council Committee on Ordinances, Licenses and Legal Affairs co-posted with the Committee of the Whole_____________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________ met in the Council Chamber on _April 14, 2026__________ at ______6:00______P.M. for the purpose of discussing the matters(s) listed below. Notice of this meeting was posted on ___ April 10, 2026__ at ___ 11:54 A.M._________________ (This meeting is being recorded) ATTENDANCE OLLA – Varela (Chair), Hapworth, Smith (zoom), Prosniewski & Holappa. COW – King, Sydoriak (zoom), Turowski & Merkl ABSENT WERE: Davis & Flynn. #46 An Ordinance to amend an Ordinance relative to Home Occupation Varela – We are discussing home occupation which is the start to a larger conversation, and we will be reviewing draft language for the order. First, I have a presentation. Basically, it's going to show a little bit of guidance from the American Planning Association. I put this together years ago. I have an abbreviated version of this, but it's going to set us up to what we're looking to do and how home occupation is set up. We'll look at environmental justice communities that have home occupation that are similar in population to Salem, and we'll also look at other surrounding cities and towns to see what they do. At that point, we will talk about the draft we have in front of us. The current ordinance does not allow for any tangible product, like an artist. This draft we have in front of us is more comprehensive than we are used to because it lists the uses whereas most ordinances are rather vague. These are occupations that I think are reasonable to have in a home and shouldn’t require a special permit to perform. I don’t think it is fair to the residents to have a vague ordinance on the books so they don’t know what they can and can’t do and leave it up to interpretation. This will allow residents to do something creative in their home. Home occupation is a great incubator for small business. Starting a small business in a brick and mortar is expensive. Presentation: General home occupation standards. All home occupations shall comply with the following appearance. There should be no exterior evidence that a building is being used for any purpose other than a dwelling or an accessory structure. This protects visual quality of life in the neighborhood. Activity. Home occupation shall not cause any odor, dust, smoke, vibration, noise, heat glare, or electromagnetic interference, which can be detected at or beyond the property line. Those are pretty much some basics for a sound ordinance, but many find merit including a few more specifics. Parking. Off street parking will be provided by the homeowner. This is guidance from the American Planning Association. A lot of communities base their home occupation off this. Storage. There will be no outdoor storage of equipment, material, or stock, and there will be no storage on premises of explosives or highly flammable or extremely hazardous materials defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The operator. The business must be conducted by a full-time resident of a property. The concern here is that if you're not a full-time resident, you may not be attuned to the community that surrounds you. Square footage use. There's no limit to the amount of square footage that can be used within the residential structure for a business activity, but it's very common for communities to restrict floor space for businesses in the home. How much space do you allocate to a business, and how much living does not affect the quality of life of your neighbor? Plus, it's next to impossible to enforce. I identified 18 communities that meet this criteria. Within a population of 35,000 and 65,000. Most communities have home occupation in some way or another. But again, they're all different, because this is going to be tailored to the community needs, and obviously, Salem is much different from any of these other communities, and so we must take that into account. I have confidence that we know what we want to see in a home occupation. What's going to work for Salem is not necessarily going to work for Barnstable or Braintree. In front of us, we have a draft and this is going to be a zoning change. In Salem, we have residents that live in business districts, as well as the residential districts. Discussion: King – I am very excited that this has been brought in. This is very important for the economic development in Salem. People with an idea for a business are expected to go into debt which is not realistic. Home occupation will allow residents to incubate their own ideas within their space. Maybe they grow and maybe they just remain a small business, but this will give them the opportunity to thrive. Hapworth – I am also excited about this discussion. I appreciate the presentation, but I don’t think we can really get into the specifics without department heads being here, specifically the building inspector and city solicitor. I think we should discuss the specifics with those that will be enforcing this order. I would like to make a motion to leave this in committee until we can have a conversation with our department heads. Varela – I spoke with Vroula about this and she is interested to hear what kinds of questions come out of our conversation. Currently, home occupation in Salem is restricted. It is up to the building commissioner to decide what is a reasonable use. If they agree, then they issue the permit and if they don’t then the request has to go to a special permit granting authority. I would appreciate having more of a dialogue so that we have questions for our department heads. Hapworth – I have a motion on the table, and I would like to see if I have a second. Prosniewski – I will second it, but I would like to continue the discussion. This is a timely ordinance, and I think that there should be an opportunity for our residents if it doesn’t interfere with the quality of life of the other neighbors. This is not just the building inspector, but other department heads grant these permits. I have some questions to ask them regarding why they grant certain licenses to people in some neighborhoods and deny them in other for the exact same use. I would also like to know what the chain would be. Which department to start with and how it moves through the process and we need the department heads here to have that conversation. Holappa – I agree that we need to have a meeting with department heads, but I think we can have a discussion today to figure out what we would like to put in front of the department heads. I have some questions and I think we can get a group of questions for them. Hapworth –I don’t want to set a precedence that we have to have a meeting to discuss what questions we want to ask of the department heads and then have another meeting to ask those questions. That is not how we normally do things, and I don’t think we should change how we normally do things. We should be asking them questions, so we know how we want to draft the ordinance. We are doing this in a backwards fashion. We can’t start fine tuning an ordinance that we don’t know how it will be enforced. King – Do we know how many residents are currently doing home occupation? Varela – There are currently 8 that have requested special permits. We have no way of knowing of others because right now, if you aren’t creating something in your home you don’t have to register or get a permit to have a business in your home. Sydoriak – I agree that we need to hear from city staff, but I think it would be helpful to have a conversation tonight and decide on what questions that we want to ask. Public Comment: Jeff Cohen – First, I would like to request that there are no barber shops near my home on Hancock St. I have some suggestions for questions that you can ask the department heads. You need to find out how they plan to enforce it. You might want the health agent here as well in case there are any food issue questions. I think this is a great idea. We need more diversity in our local small businesses. Back to discussion: Varela – We can vote on the motion to remain in committee. Vote is 2-2, so it will remain in committee. We will work on getting the department heads here for a future meeting. Oh, wait, we have Smith from the committee on zoom so we need to re-do the vote and it must be a roll call vote. Roll call vote to remain in committee 2-3: Smith – no Holappa – no Hapworth – yes Prosniewski – yes Varela – no Continue discussion: King – The question that I have had on this from residents is regarding the no more than 20% of the gross square footage of the home. I think that is confusing and unenforceable. I am curious about the city solicitor’s comments on this order. There are other zoning ordinances that allow for small businesses in the home, like day care, and I would like to know what he thinks of the language in this order. I would like some clarity on when a business is home occupation and when is it a small business. I am going to push back on the barber shop. I think that if you make it a max of one stylist, then that would work but we don’t want several so more traffic in and out of the home. Smith – People are already doing a lot of these things in their home. A visual artist in Ward 1, recording studio in Ward 5, hairdresser in Ward 7. I am a writer working from home in Ward 2. We need to get this done fast because these people are currently operating illegally. I would like the space to increase to 25% and I do think that the barbershop should be included for solo practitioners. I think the ordinance that we have in front of us is fantastic, but we should add those 2 things. Sydoriak – I like the ordinance, but I have some questions. Is there a cap on how many of the same profession you could have in the same neighborhood or area? We should be putting together formal list of questions for the department heads. We don’t want to have a meeting without our accountability. We need to work with the information that we have so we can move forward to the next step. Turowski – I think this is a great start. I have a question on Section H. It is very specific, unlike the others and I think it is too restrictive. Can we make this office space for licensed professionals? This would cover everyone on the list except musicians which we could move to Section A or B. It would also allow for medical telehealth visits as well. Holappa – I like the intent of the ordinance. I love the fact the people can try out a business from their home without expending a lot financially. I see this work for people that want to make a hobby into a small business. I like the section on nuisance control, but I think we could eliminate sections 3.2.3 & 3.2.4 to leave it a little more vague. I think that if someone wants to build a shed on their property to store supplies, they should be allowed to do so. Varela – I appreciate the discussion and the at large counselors being involved as well. We need to figure out what the will of the body is before we meet with the department heads to get the answers to our questions. Hapworth – There is no reason why we couldn’t have had department heads here today. I don’t think we need to have a meeting to decide what we need to ask the department heads. I have some questions on the ordinance. For the family day care, it lists no more than 4 children. Where does that number come from? Is it a state guideline? Varela – Yes, there is a state regulation for the number of children you can have in your home day care. Hapworth - How about the number of shipments allowed? The ordinance says no more than one shipment per day, but how will that be enforced if someone is also getting personal items shipped to their home? It says no building shall be erected but what if someone builds an ADU (accessory dwelling unit) on their home? Who determines what is normal occurring traffic? I think these are questions that we could be asking department heads. Merkl – I agree that we should have the department heads here to answer our questions and be part of the conversation from the start. That is how we have done things in the past and I think that is our best practices. I think it is very helpful to have the information from neighboring towns/communities. I am not sure that we should have parking requirements since there are some that live in a more urban area that may not have access to off street parking. Some of these things will be difficult to enforce, like someone that is using more than 25% of their home or if someone puts up a shed, how do we know what they are using it for? I think that expanding a property or having build-outs, would fall under our regular zoning requirements. King – I agree with the questions that Merkl had regarding the building structures and the questions that Holappa had on nuisance control. I do think it would have been helpful to have city staff here tonight, but I think we used the time efficiently. Holappa – I have some questions on the prohibited occupation which would be a question for city staff. What are the concerns for a barbershop, etc.? I think we should be asking what we want our neighborhoods to look like and what is enforceable. Prosniewski – There was an article in the news about a woman in Wilmington that built a shed and is baking bread. Every Saturday, people are lined up on her street to get her bread. We need to look at how these businesses are going to impact our neighborhoods. I am sure that the people of Wilmington had no idea how her bread making business would impact her neighborhood. These are questions for our department heads. Varela – A bakery would be regulated by cottage food laws (Massachusetts cottage food laws allow residents to produce and sell specific non-potentially hazardous (shelf-stable) foods, such as breads, cookies, jams, and herbs, directly to consumers from their home kitchens. Producers must obtain a Residential Kitchen Permit from their local Board of Health, which requires a kitchen inspection and food safety training. Sales are capped by local regulations and are limited to direct-to-consumer, with no wholesale allowed). The state will come in and inspect your residential kitchen. We want to know how these businesses will affect our neighborhoods. Smith – I think that we have put together an excellent list of questions for our department heads. I would like to make a motion to keep this in committee. Sydoriak – We have some great questions, and I hope that there is a formal way that we can submit them to city staff, so they have time to prepare to answer them instead of them attending a meeting and getting blindsided by all our questions. Varela – I will be compiling a list of questions that came out of this meeting. I will send them to the department heads, and they will have ample time to respond. I appreciate the conversation so we have something to talk about with the department heads and we can craft this thing appropriately. Hapworth – I appreciate the conversation tonight and I just want to say that whenever you have questions for department heads or city staff, you can reach out to them. We certainly don’t want to blindside anyone with questions. I think this is a great start, and I appreciate Varela bringing this forward. Varela – There were department heads that were invited to the meeting, but I was told a few hours before the meeting that they would not be able to attend. I agree that procedurally we will attempt to make that happen going forward. Smith makes a motion to keep this in committee and seconded by Holappa. Roll call vote 5-0. on the motion of C. Hapworth the meeting adjourned at 7:07P.M. Andrew Varela mbc (Chairperson)