Traverse City planning commissioners Tuesday will consider relaxing regulations for daycare providers in the city – a move that could help address a dire shortage of child care options in the region.

Commissioners will discuss several proposed changes to the city’s zoning code aimed at making it easier for child care homes to operate. In a memo to the commission, City Planning and Engineering Assistant Missy Luick noted the state of Michigan already licenses and regulates child care businesses, requiring steep application fees, inspections, criminal record checks, condition assessment investigations, and more.

“Because child care organizations are regulated by the state and there is a daycare and child care shortage in our area, staff is proposing to relax our zoning and regulatory requirements for such operations in Traverse City,” Luick wrote.

The proposed changes would open up neighborhoods in which different types of child care facilities can operate in the city, as well as streamline the permitting process for many homes. Family child care homes – defined as those with less than six children – would be permitted in all residential zones and would not be subject to any special permits, reflecting the state’s position that such homes are a permissible residential use.

Group child care homes – those with six to 12 children – would no longer have to get a special land use permit (SLUP) with the city and would instead be allowed by right, provided they meet state licensing and safety requirements as well as city rules for operations. Child care organizations, defined as more intensive facilities like professional day care centers, would also be allowed by right throughout numerous commercial districts in the city, including downtown, hotel-resort districts, C-1 office service districts, and near Munson Medical Center and Northwestern Michigan College.

City Manager Marty Colburn told city commissioners in February he hoped to bring proposed zoning changes to the board to help ease the burden on local daycare providers. “What we’ve identified…is that some of our own zoning regulations may be slowing us down and putting too heavy of a regulatory responsibility on the local daycares,” he said. “We’re realizing we might be able to…relieve a little bit of that particular industry to help meet the shortage.”

Great Start Collaborative Coordinator Mary Manner calls the proposed changes “fantastic news” for local child care providers and families. She says a recent survey of northern Michigan licensed providers compared to infants and toddlers in households where both parents are working determined there is only capacity locally to care for “about 60 percent of those children. We’re talking about 400 or 500 kids where we don’t know what arrangements parents are making for their care or the impact it’s having on their families. We haven’t been able to grow our child care capacity fast enough to meet that kind of need.”

Manner says it’s important to ensure providers are appropriately licensed and that they offer quality care, rather than “allowing unrestricted opportunity for opening child care” facilities in the city. But with state requirements already imposing strict regulations, additional local zoning rules can impose another layer of red tape on operators that could be relaxed without compromising child safety or welfare, Manner says.

“These are small businesses,” she explains. “People aren’t in it necessarily to make a profit. The state already places through its licensing requirements a huge regulatory burden on child care providers. It’s the cost of doing business. But the fees you can charge are limited by what parents can afford to pay. It’s a really challenging business model.”

Traverse City is one of several jurisdictions in the region that require group child care homes to be more than 1,500 feet apart. Among the other proposed changes, city planning commissioners will consider reducing that distance to 1,000 feet. Manner notes that the distance requirement “physically limits the number of homes that can care for kids,” arbitrarily restricting supply in areas like downtown or city center neighborhoods where there’s high demand for options near where parents are working. “I know numerous families that drive an extra 15 miles or more in a day just to get their child to care,” she says. “It isn’t just Traverse City. It’s all of the small towns in the area. There just isn’t enough care.”

Planning commissioners will discuss the proposed changes at their 7pm Tuesday meeting. If the board supports the overhaul, staff will draft new ordinance language and bring it to the commission for a vote at a future meeting, with city commissioners having final approval over the changes. Manner says opening the door to more quality child care options will benefit not just families but the city as a whole.

“If we don’t have care, parents can’t work,” she says. “And if parents can’t work, we don’t have the young skilled workforce we need in order to secure our economic future."