The first home-based bridal shop will soon be operating in the city after the Planning Commission voted 4-1, with Commissioner Arne Olson dissenting, to approve it.
Commissioners Kathy Narum, Jennifer Pearce, Anne Fox and Phil Blank voted in favor of the business at the Nov. 14 meeting.
The proposal was made by Rebecca Andrus and her mother, Wilma Thomas, who will run the store out of Thomas’ home at 3463 Windsor Court, where Andrus lives.
The pair will cater to a niche market–dresses worn by brides marrying in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LDS church wedding dresses are required to have sleeves, a high neckline and high backline.
The business will operate under a non-exempt home occupancy permit. The permit is not a type of conditional use permit, which is what businesses are required to have. Because the shop will be operated out of a residence, it follows a different set of criteria, according to city planner Leslie Mendez.
“There are two types of home occupations per the city code: exempt and non-exempt. To qualify for an exempt home occupation, (they) should be able to check off all the requirements including no clients coming to the house, no outside employees coming to work at the house, use of only one room for the home business, etc.,” Mendez said. “Generally, exempt home occupations are for production of arts and crafts and/or office uses.”
However, the bridal shop doesn’t meet all the requirements for an exempt permit, so it falls under the non-exempt category. Non-exempt permits are fairly uncommon. The city has approved 12 of 21 applications since the city began allowing them in 2001, according to a city staff report. Of those approved, four were for lessons within a home, four were for service-type businesses, three were related to arts and crafts and one was for a stud service of Persian cats. The staff report says the bridal shop proposal meets less requirements than any other non-exempt home occupancy permitted operations.
As part of the commission’s approval, there will be a sunset clause of one year, meaning the city will review the permit in one year’s time to determine if it will continue to be allowed or not.
Commissioner Blank said he was having trouble supporting the proposal because it met so little of the conditions, including: no one other than residents of the house can be employed; materials, equipment, stock or supplies cannot occupy more than one room or more than 50 square feet of an accessory building or garage; it cannot create excessive pedestrian or vehicular traffic in the residential area; and no deliveries other than those made by the permittee may be made.
“There’s a point in which you have to say if there’s this many conditions of approval and there’s this many exceptions (to them), maybe it doesn’t really belong,” Blank said.
But after it was apparent that three of the five commissioners were supportive of the permit, Blank gave his approval in a final vote, after a condition was added requiring that delivery trucks one ton or larger would not be allowed.
Andrus told the commission she would limit client’s appointments and customers will be asked to park in the driveway. A home day care business currently resides at 3444 Windsor Court, which already creates traffic, she has said, and weekday appointments would be held at night when day care hours are over.
But Jaime Zile, owner of J’aime’s Bridal on West Neal Street, said allowing the business to operate would set a precedent for other retail-oriented home occupations. As a downtown business owner, she said she encourages competition and felt that Andrus would do well serving such a niche market, but allowing the sale of wedding dresses from a home would undercut her shop, which has large overhead operating costs, such as rent.
“We don’t want to prevent people from going into business–that’s not the goal,” Blank said. “But I think supporting the downtown is important.”
But Thomas said she didn’t see how their home business would affect a downtown bridal shop’s and added that they would be selling to a select group of brides.
Commissioner Narum said she didn’t believe the approval meant that commission would be setting a precedent because the city reviews each permit application on a case-by-case basis.
“It was, I would say, the most difficult vote I’ve made or had to make (since I’ve been) on the commission, in about seven or eight months,” she said.
Narum said she understands the need to support retail businesses which operate out of storefronts, but added that the applicants were honest about their intentions and were willing to make concessions to their operation.
She added that she didn’t believe traffic would have as much of an impact as a music studio or day care would, and the city already allows those such uses in neighborhoods, including the day care on Windsor Court.
The city received one email from a neighbor against the proposal and one email from another neighbor in support, according to the staff report. Andrus told the commission she’s spoken to many neighbors who have said they approve of her business.
Andrus will be required to obtain a business license, Mendez said.
The commission’s decision can be appealed to the City Council by Nov. 29. As of press time, no appeal had been made by anyone from the public.
