There's more good than harm when homes, business blend

CHRISTIAN AAGAARD

(Feb 26, 2005)

Not that I'd want to live beside Lou's Drum Tuning and Elephant Training Centre, but there is a certain comfort in having a home-based business next door.

My neighbour, for example, looks after a bunch of children who tumble around her backyard. They're usually curious about what I'm doing when I'm poking about on my side of the fence.

I'll bet they'd be just as interested in the activities of somebody who shouldn't be there. So much so that they might say something to my neighbour, who might then just check things out for herself -- with a suspicious eye.

There's more good than harm in a proposal the City of Kitchener is working on to beef up home-business opportunities in the old neighbourhoods surrounding the downtown core.

For years, urban planners have fretted about how streets empty in the morning as two-income households rush off to work. For the sake of neighbourhood security, they'd like to see people stick around.

Currently, Kitchener homeowners can use up to 25 per cent of their house space to run a business. The planning department is making a pitch to raise that to 50 per cent in the area surrounding the downtown, plus move the non-resident employee limit from one person to three.

Needless to say, the plan has its skeptics.

David Bradshaw of the Auditorium Neighbourhood Association told The Record this week he is concerned that such a change would increase traffic and diminish the family character of the area singled out for the change. The boundary roughly consists of the border with Waterloo to the west, the Iron Horse Trail and Mill Street to the south, Ottawa Street to the east and East Avenue to the north.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to what Bradshaw says about noise and traffic safety. Given a choice between relative peace and quiet and listening to car doors slam outside a doctor's office in the next house, who wouldn't take peace and quiet?

But I sense, too, and that if municipalities want to control sprawl by intensifying existing land uses, they are going to have to build greater flexibility into single-family zoning. A few taboos must fall.

We're slowly learning that strict planning segregation -- workplaces over here, houses over there, apartments somewhere else, (and the farther away, the better) -- is actually unhealthy for a community. It trains people to think in terms of travel corridors rather than full-service neighbourhoods.

The impact of what city planners have in mind in the downtown area can be softened by setting restrictions. Business signs should be small and muted. The sorts of business the change would allow should be limited to ones that that generate low traffic, little noise and no odour.

The city could also ease anxiety by promising to pro-actively enforce the new standards, if they're eventually accepted by council, rather than wait for complaints to come in.

In return, the city gets more eyes on the street in neighbourhoods that typically slip into a dormant stage during the day.

It also makes it easier for the owners of new, wobbly businesses to work out of their homes when they're tight for cash and most vulnerable to failure.

Finally, it pays more than lip service to the problem of sprawl. Gains in the battle at the fringe aren't going to come without some sacrifices in the middle.

Christian Aagaard can be reached at 894-2250, ext. 2660, or by e-mail, caagaard@therecord.com