Steve Mensing, Editor
♦ Imagine if the founders of Apple (The late Steve Jobs) and Microsoft (Bill Gates) tried to get their start in America’s “gig” city, they would be have been runoff by our current city council. Just consider the enormous economic contributions (billions of dollars) these innovators made to their cities from their home-garage startups. Salisbury would’ve squealed : “Too big and we can’t control them! Next thing you know they won’t cut their grass.”
Salisbury now has an armed code enforcement officer who can gain entry into any home where someone is suspected of having a “home office” and inspect to see if they exceed the three hundred square foot limit for a single-family home. This is for real.
For a city claiming a desire to attract entrapaneurs to their alleged “historic” burg they certainly throw up a lot of obstacles for entrapaneurs or anyone who wants to work from their home. If these new “home occupation” rules were not enough to stifle entrepreneurial adventurism, think of the city’s high taxes, arbitrary historic codes, excessive water and sewer bills, high violent and property crime, poverty, low spendable income, and city public schools attaining mostly Ds from the State Board of Education. (I won’t say anything about the suspension of train horns at railroad crossings).
The artist popularly known as Clyde spoke at public commentary yesterday about the proposed changes in the city policy for running a home business. He said words to the effect that the policy changes amounted to an invasion of privacy and that Salisbury is losing businesses because it has too many rules. Then Clyde asked if the city would measure square footage in the home. The answer came back “yes” from planner Preston Mitchell who added that a city code enforcement officer would need to come to the home and do an inspection.
“Knock-knock.”
“…Who’s der?”
“Code enforcement and I’m armed. Were inspecting for home offices. We think you have one.”
Residents must obtain a permit from the city before they can legally run a home business and they must be inspected. The new policy says a home office must not exceed 300 square feet of gross living area.
We’ll post the full policy when its available. In the meantime keep your fleet of 18 wheelers off the front lawn and if you’re a home entrepreneur you’d best pack up and scoot to a more business friendly community. Bag the “gig”–you can get that anywhere.
