After a year of pandemic lockdowns, it’s hard to think of anything that we can’t do in our homes. Work, baking, exercise, school, hedgehog ninja warrior courses. Homes that were just sleeping stations on our way back to work have become, surprisingly, places to actually live.
But Seattle does have an extensive list of things that you are technically not allowed to do in your house. The zoning code excludes all sorts of uses throughout the 75% of the city that’s strictly zoned for single-family detached homes. Those rules came crashing down on a local cidery in recent weeks as Yonder Bar was forced to shut down its garage-based bottle shop in Greenwood. For many, this is the first time they heard of the concept of home occupations.
Home occupations are an old part of zoning, one of the original release valves from when cities started putting hard and fast restrictions on what people could do with their properties. There are some occupations that people need to do from their homes and zoning grew to reflect that. But the list of allowable home occupations, and the way it’s enforced, shows how out of place the law is today.
Seattle’s current controversy stems from neighbors trying to take away one of the few good things that popped up during this past hell year. Starting last fall and ramping up in December, Seattle’s Department of Construction and Inspections (SDCI) received complaints about a cider bar operating out of someone’s garage. Bemoaning the home’s location in a residential neighborhood, blocks from schools, “in plain sight of any child nearby,” these scolds called the city down upon their neighbors.
