Text Amendment: Daycare Centre

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This application has now closed.

Council is considering amending the St. John's Development Regulations to bring municipal regulations for daycare centres more in line with provincial regulations.

Under the Envision St. John’s Development Regulations, a daycare within a home is considered a home occupation. A home occupation is defined as a secondary use of a dwelling unit and/or accessory building by at least one of the residents of that dwelling unit to conduct a gainful occupation or business activity, and Section 6.18 sets out the conditions required. A home occupation cannot be bigger than 45 square metres or 25% of the gross floor area of the dwelling unit whichever is less. In some situations, our size limit may not allow enough space as required by the Province for a home daycare. Therefore, text changes are proposed to bring the City’s regulations more in line with the provincial ones. Where possible, references to maximum areas within the home have been removed and the terms have been changed to match the Province’s terms.

Further, the City is proposing to allow Family Child Care Services (a daycare within a home) as a Permitted Use within various residential zones, allow Daycare Centre as a Permitted Use in various commercial and institutional zones and remove Daycare Center from zones that do not have municipal water. This will include the Rural Residential (RR) Zone and the Rural Village (RV) Zone.

The proposed changes can be found in the background information.

Review the materials on this page and provide your feedback or ask a question.

Return to Planning St. John's main page.

Council is considering amending the St. John's Development Regulations to bring municipal regulations for daycare centres more in line with provincial regulations.

Under the Envision St. John’s Development Regulations, a daycare within a home is considered a home occupation. A home occupation is defined as a secondary use of a dwelling unit and/or accessory building by at least one of the residents of that dwelling unit to conduct a gainful occupation or business activity, and Section 6.18 sets out the conditions required. A home occupation cannot be bigger than 45 square metres or 25% of the gross floor area of the dwelling unit whichever is less. In some situations, our size limit may not allow enough space as required by the Province for a home daycare. Therefore, text changes are proposed to bring the City’s regulations more in line with the provincial ones. Where possible, references to maximum areas within the home have been removed and the terms have been changed to match the Province’s terms.

Further, the City is proposing to allow Family Child Care Services (a daycare within a home) as a Permitted Use within various residential zones, allow Daycare Centre as a Permitted Use in various commercial and institutional zones and remove Daycare Center from zones that do not have municipal water. This will include the Rural Residential (RR) Zone and the Rural Village (RV) Zone.

The proposed changes can be found in the background information.

Review the materials on this page and provide your feedback or ask a question.

Return to Planning St. John's main page.

This application has now closed.

Please use this space to ask questions regarding this application and we will provide an answer. All questions will be posted as submitted. Some questions may require coordination with internal departments and additional time may be needed to post a response. 

The Q & A section will remain open while the application is active. 

If you prefer to provide comments or questions using mail or email, please do so to the Office of the City Clerk, including your name and address, e-mail cityclerk@stjohns.ca or write to P.O. Box 908, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5M2. Be sure to include the name of the application in your submission.