City Zoning Change Allows Residents to Work from Home

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Continuing COVID-19 guidelines require that students wear masks in indoor spaces such as Mudd Center.

Photo by Khadijah Halliday, Photo Editor

Health Department guidelines. OCS Superintendent David Hall referred to Lorain County’s currently low level of COVID-19 in the Thursday press release that detailed the new masking status.

“On Friday, Feb. 25, 2022, the CDC and Lorain County Public Health Department updated their COVID-19 guidelines, and are no longer recommending universal masking of students in grades K–12 in school atmospheres with low or medium COVID-19 community levels,” Hall wrote. “The Lorain County community level is rated ‘low.’ … Therefore, Oberlin City School District will no longer require masks for students in pre-K–12 classrooms or on district transportation effective Monday, March 7, 2022. Oberlin City School District will move to a Mask Optional Status for all students and staff.”

However, the College is choosing to follow the path of caution — even hiring a new health consultant to help with the College’s COVID-19 approach. Shortly after a relaxation of COVID-19 protocols and the announcement of former COVID-19 Campus Health Coordinator Katie Gravens’ retirement at the end of December, there was a spike in COVID-19 cases on Dec. 19. This spike prompted the College to impose stricter COVID-19 protocols for the remainder of the fall semester.

According to Hertz, Terri Buzzell has ample expertise and knowledge of the College’s current protocols and will be able to address student concerns about COVID-19 safety. Buzzell is a registered nurse and holds a Master of Healthcare Administration degree and a Master of Science in Nursing degree. She is the current Director of Nursing Operations at Harness Health Partners, where she leads various clinical and administrative teams that serve the needs of patients throughout Bon Secours Mercy Health’s domain.

“I am excited about joining the ObieSafe team,” Buzzell stated in the ObieSafe email. “I am a firm believer that health and wellness are vital for successful academics. I look forward to serving Oberlin College by helping to keep the Oberlin community safe and healthy.”

people who could come into a home to visit a home business or who could work in the home, if they don’t reside there, is limited. That means that we wouldn’t be creating parking problems in the neighborhood through the creation of a home business.”

Expanding how residents can conduct business in their homes will allow small businesses to forego the use of offices that might now be unnecessary and expensive for small operations. This cuts down on costs and allows people to tailor their professional workspace to their needs. “There are a lot of what we call sole professionals or freelancers,” said Haar. “People who are doing work for a company but they’re not employees of the company; they do projects, or they own their very small consulting or professional business. They don’t have an office, and they don’t really need an office.”

The new regulation might also impact some students. Students renting from local landlords in off-campus housing may now conduct business from their homes as per the policy change.

Nikki Keating Senior Staff Writer

Earlier this month, Oberlin City Council loosened Oberlin’s zoning regulations to allow residents to conduct business from their homes. This change will help accommodate the many Oberlin residents who began working from their homes due to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as those who would like to do so in the future.

“More people [are] saying that they wanted to work from home,” said Director of Planning and Development Carrie Porter. “I think there was some sentiment too about making it a little easier for people to start businesses, maybe in their home. The current home occupation regulations [are] pretty restrictive.”

The old regulations did not allow group assembly in residential areas except for family members residing on the premises. This meant that home businesses could not have outside employees. The new changes will allow non-resident employees to work in homes or in other buildings that meet specific criteria.

The revised policies mean that residents can devote up to 50 percent of their home to their business, have a limited number of customers in their home, store business related materials in backyards, and make modifications to their home for their business.

Although Oberlin is not currently host to a large number of home businesses, the new regulation is an exciting change for existing entrepreneurs and has the possibility to entice residents to open home businesses in the future.

“With so many more people working from home in various ways, it seems to me that this is a really welcome development for the community,” said City Council Member and Liaison to the Planning Commission Ray English. “We do know that there are current home businesses in Oberlin that very much welcome this. There is a member of the planning commission who actually operates a home business.”

The planning commission echoed these thoughts in a presentation they gave to the City Council before the vote on the new regulations. Because of the pandemic, more people are working from home and according to the planning commission, this trend is likely to continue.

Janet Haar, executive director of the Oberlin Business Partnership, has also noticed a rise in the number of people wanting to work from their homes, even though COVID-19 positivity rates have decreased. Haar mentioned that productivity has increased since many began working from home.

“Many things have happened in the last five years, but especially in the last two and a half, many more people are working from home because their companies didn’t have them come into work,” Haar said. “Many companies have said, ‘Well, you know, they’re just about as productive or more so from home than they are in the office.’ So why are we paying all that money to have offices? Why don’t we just have them work from home?”

Cities often have regulations against businesses located in residential areas in order to protect neighborhoods from the disruptive activities of commercial businesses such as loud noises and heavy traffic from customers. However, English emphasized that the Planning Commission was careful to ensure the new regulations would protect neighborhoods surrounding a home business.

“So for example a home business could take deliveries from delivery trucks that generally come into the neighborhood,” English said. “So you take an Amazon delivery truck as an example, but larger trucks would not be allowed. And the number of

New zoning regulations will allow Oberlin residents to conduct business from their homes. Photo by Kush Bulmer, News Editor

The Oberlin review

March 4, 2022 Volume 151, Number 13 (ISSN 297–256)

Published by the students of Oberlin College every Friday during the fall and spring semesters, except holidays and examination periods. Advertising rates: $18 per column inch. Second-class postage paid at Oberlin, Ohio. Entered as second-class matter at the Oberlin, Ohio post office April 2, 1911. POSTMASTER SEND CHANGES TO: Wilder Box 90, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1081. Office of Publication: Burton Basement, Oberlin, Ohio 44074. Phone: (440) 775-8123

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