Zoning Laws - Home Based Embroidery Business

jt72978 · May 29th, 2013, 12:47 PM

I'm interested to know how your experience was with zoning laws and your home based commercial businesses. I am preparing to open a home based embroidery business and today I spoke with our town and met a lot of resistance. They told me that they would classify my embroidery business as a retail store and that it is not allowed in our town. How is your embroidery business classified?

FYI - I don't plan to have a show room at this time and I will be offering free delivery to my customers so I don't anticipate having a lot of traffic in and out of my home.

Robert Young · May 29th, 2013, 06:04 PM

my experience is that it varies from town to town... For example I am in San Antonio... but within the city there are small towns... so in reality I live in Terrell Hills... so their rules apply to me, not so much the San Antonio rules. I had to classify my concern as a "hobby" and make sure not too many FedEx or other deliveries were ever happening. I never had clients come to the house so that was not an issue.

Insurance is another subject that is very similar.... as a "hobby" the machines were FULLY covered... but if it were classified as a "business" they would only cover $2500 max without a rider.

None of this matters to me now as I am moving to Austin and the rules there are different.

LogoAdvantage · June 3rd, 2013, 08:53 AM

I agree with Robert, every place is different

I have quite a few people that have purchased machines from me that are Home Based. If you do not want to Raise Issues then keep customers from coming to your house. The UPS truck will not be a problem but having people coming and going could be an issue and it sounds like you have addressed that problem in your plan already.

If your county frowns on the idea of you doing business from home get a storage unit that will accept delivery for you or ship to a UPS store that will accept delivery for you, and again do not allow customers to come to your home. In most countys that is the big concern not the delivery trucks.