Changes Weighed on Regulations for Home Businesses in Whittier

As legions of American workers move from offices and boardrooms to garages and bedrooms, cities across the country are scrambling to update home-based business regulations.

In Whittier, Planning Director Michael Burnham says he has no problem with people who quietly sit at their computers crunching numbers or writing reports. He’s more concerned with the steadily growing number of entrepreneurs who either have customers, make noise or both--the auto detailers, the massage therapists, the gardeners, the limousine drivers, the printers and furniture makers.

For the past year, the Whittier Planning Department has studied requests from dozens of residents who find the current zoning codes too restrictive. Home-based business people, for example, currently can conduct business only on the phone. They are barred from storing products or seeing customers.

“We’re trying to be more flexible,” Burnham said. “We’re also trying to keep out unsightly equipment and keep people out of residential neighborhoods who obviously have commercial businesses.”

The proposed ordinance, which will be introduced to the Whittier Uptown Assn. and the city Chamber of Commerce next week, is designed to create more zoning flexibility. It will be of particular benefit to tutors, dressmakers, jewelry makers, painters and others who have been barred from working at home.