A city councillor wants to make some changes to how home-based businesses are run in the city, including allowing those businesses to have employees who don’t live on the premises.
At the moment, the city’s bylaw states home-based businesses can only have employees who live at the dwelling. St. Albert Coun. Natalie Joly, after speaking to some home business owners, plans to put forward a motion to possibly change some of the city’s bylaws to allow for outside help, among other things.
“I’d like us to be competitive with our neighbours and I want to give our small businesses as much of an opportunity as they can get to be successful,” she said.
“I know (businesses) that employ other people, so for them, they’ve just chosen to operate illegally. If you watch the help wanted ads, it’s not uncommon to see an ad for an assistant for a professional working out of their home.”
Other municipalities do things a bit differently.
For example, Edmonton follows the same rules for minor home-based businesses, but major home businesses are allowed to hire additional employees who do not live at the house.
A major home business, according to the City of Edmonton’s website, is a business that is visible and that involves customers coming to the home or some other use of the property that is not typical of a residential area.
Morinville has similar rules for minor and major home-based businesses. Only major home occupations are allowed to have one non-resident employee or business partner.
Joly, who ran her own home-based business prior to being elected to council, argues changing St. Albert’s rules to ones similar to neighbouring communities could help local businesses succeed.
Allowing for outside employees isn’t the only change Joly is hoping to make. She is also proposing to allow for exterior signs or plaques on the residence to advertise the business, to a maximum size of 20 by 30 centimetres. She also wants to create a minor home-based business designation with a reduced or waived business licence fee.
At the moment, someone looking to set up shop in their home would have to pay a total of $227.50 in fees. This covers the application fee, building permit and safety code.
Joly called it a nuisance fee.
“It’s frustrating for businesses like that to have to pay (those fees),” she said. “It’s crept up over the last couple of years. It’s hundreds of dollars a year for a piece of paper that says they can legally operate, when they know the likelihood of getting caught is nonexistent. My neighbours would never have known that I operated a business here. It doesn’t impact anyone.”
Kirsty Pilgrim started her home-based business at the start of March after working out of her home for the past five years. Her business focuses on virtual assisting, which she describes as an independent contractor who provides administrative services to clients while operating outside of the client’s office.
She supported the changes being proposed by Joly, even though most of the changes wouldn’t impact her too much.
“When I was doing my research about what you need in order to get a business up and running in St. Albert, I did speak to other people who work from home and we all kind of scratched our heads,” she said.
“I understand if you run a nail salon from your house or if you run a hair salon or maybe a massage therapist. You got people coming in and out of your home. In my case, I don’t. So you're wondering, what exactly is the business licence for?”
The next sitting city council meeting is scheduled for April 1.
