Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
People listen to the Mountain Brook City Council discuss a proposed new home occupation license ordinance on Thursday, July 9, 2026.
Gerald Garner said he’s made it clear that he’s on the side of business. Toward that end, the Mountain Brook councilman said Thursday night that he closely examined the city’s proposed new home occupation ordinance, hoping to expose its flaws.
“I tried my best to poke holes in this thing, looking at every way to Sunday,” he said, “just thinking, is it going to handicap any business — because you know I'm pro that. I think it fits the bill. I really do.”
An hourlong special council meeting Thursday night may have brought the council to the brink of settling a debate that has spanned four years. A vote is likely to come at Monday’s 7 p.m. regular council meeting to establish a new ordinance to govern businesses that operate out of the homes of residents.
The special meeting was largely an open discussion among members of the council about the ordinance that was drafted by Council President Billy Pritchard, Councilwoman Maretta Ashford, City Attorney Whit Colvin and Dana Hazen, the city’s director of planning, building and sustainability.
Hazen said Mountain Brook has had a home occupation ordinance since 1997. The original ordinance had a list of things that people could do in their homes, allowing in-home clients for tutoring and music with no more than two students at a time.
The ordinance was amended in 2017, taking away things like clock repair and basically regulating the number of client cars that could be in the homeowner’s driveway.
“Shortly after that, we began to have some issues with some in-home businesses that had clients, group activities and one-on-one,” Hazen said. “People just got very creative during COVID, for example, and a lot of people started working from home. It just began to sort of spill over into the neighborhoods around them and create conflict with their neighbors.”
The planning director said the intention is to let people start a small business in their home.
“If it's growing and growing and growing, and they're seeing more and more clients, then maybe they need a different way to operate,” Hazen said. “They need a storefront, or they need to put their product somewhere else that's already established as a retail place.”
A key element of the proposed ordinance is a special conditional use permit application to the Planning Commission. People wanting a home business license would have to bring a list of adjoining property owners certified by the county tax assessor, just like all other applicants, Hazen said.
“The planning commission may be pleased with it, might approve it as proposed, might have different suggestions, might carry it over and have them come back,” she said. “If it were to be approved, the Planning Commission would have them back in one year automatically. There's a one-year automatic annual review, one time, and hopefully there haven't been any complaints or major changes in that time period.”
Complaints would prompt an interim review. “The new code says that if there are complaints, then we have an interim review,” Hazen said. “The Planning Commission could revoke the license.”
Pritchard said city officials want to hold true to the residential character of neighborhoods and try to protect that and preserve it as best they can.
“Just because you apply for a conditional use permit doesn't mean you're going to get it,” he said. “It just depends on circumstances and what the nature of the application and what the characteristics or aspects of the business that may be trying to be operating in the home.”
Resident Geoff Luke is affectionately known as the Bread Guy because of the bread and sourdough cinnamon rolls he sells from his home on Cromwell Drive. He endorsed the proposed ordinance.
Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
Mountain Brook resident Geoff Luke, who runs a business called ALCO Baking from his home, speaks to the Mountain Brook City Council about a proposed new home occupation license ordinance on Thursday, July 9, 2026.
“The conditional permitting process, I think, is phenomenal,” he said. “When I was reading through the proposed amendments, I thought to myself (that) this makes a ton of sense, and thank you. It's been super apparent from the last three or four meetings I've been to over the last year and a half (that) you guys care about it, and you care about doing right by as many folks as possible in the city of Mountain Brook.
“The end goal is to get out of my house into a space, but I want to do it the right way,” Luke said. “I want to understand the economics. Is this a viable product for what could be possible? Do people want this? Are they going to want it on a recurring basis? Can I make this work? And I'm still learning, and at this point, also trying to build capital to be able to move into a space where I can scale in a much more robust way.”
Other conditions of the proposed ordinance include:
- No business activity should be visible from anywhere outside the home, or the building in which the use is taking place. Whether the business is being done in an accessory building or the residence, nothing should be visible from outside the four walls. That includes people who are waiting on their children in someone's yard, for example. They would need to wait in the car or come back.
- Operating hours must end at 7 p.m. instead of 6 p.m.
- No patron parking can be on the street, and patron parking in driveways would be limited to no more than two vehicles.
