R6B Community Facility use?
Our 3 family townhouse is in an R6B zone. Could I use one or 2 families for a day care facility? And if so, does anyone know if the FAR of 2 applies to this community facility use as well?
Our 3 family townhouse is in an R6B zone. Could I use one or 2 families for a day care facility? And if so, does anyone know if the FAR of 2 applies to this community facility use as well?
Glad to help.
You’re right. Community Facility under the current zoning code does not specifically state a day care use, however it would seem to fall within the description of a community facility:
Use Group 3 consists of community facilities which:
(1) may appropriately be located in #residential# areas to serve educational needs or to provide other essential services for the residents; or
(2) can perform their activities more effectively in a #residential# environment, unaffected by objectionable influences from adjacent industrial or general service #uses#; and
(3) do not create significant objectionable influences in
#residential# areas.
It does seem reasonable that a day care would be allowed as a community facility. You can probably get a definitive answer by going to homeowner’s night at the DOB every tuesday from 4:00 to 5:30.
As for the requirements of the actual space, the 1968 construction code, which would most likely apply, lists day care as Occupancy Group H-2 – Institutional:
§[C26-309.3] 27-262 Occupancy group H-2.-Shall include buildings and spaces used for the care or treatment of persons with physical limitations because of health or age. This shall not include medical or dental offices providing services to ambulatory non-hospitalized persons, such as neighborhood family care centers, medical or dental offices, group medical offices, and the like.
The construction code will go on to list the requirements of H-2 in separate sections. You’ll have to look up egress requirements and occupancy loads and a lot of other stuff. It’s time consuming, so an architect would likely do this for a fee.
Jim Hill, RA, LEED AP
Urban Pioneering Architecture
Thank you very much Jim, that was very helpful. Would you happen to know if a daycare or child care center counts as a community facility? I went through the zoning articles on the DOB website and didn’t see it specifically mentioned. Also, would you happen to know where I could find the actual requirements for the physical space for the daycare?
The community facility can be on the ground floor/basement level, and first floor if it has a completely separate entry from the residential portion.
In an R6B, you have a total FAR of 2.0, with our without a community facility. Let’s assume you have a 20′ wide by 100′ deep lot, 2,000 sf. You can build a maximum of 4,000 sf. Square footage can only be counted once, meaning that you cannot have 4,000 sf residential plus 4,000 sf community facility.
In R6B, you can have 60% lot coverage, or 1200 sf max per floor. You also need a 30 foot rear yard and possibly a front yard if your neighbors have one (you may have to meet quality housing zoning requiring you to match adjacent property setbacks), so you could end up with less than that per floor if your rear yard and front setback add up to more than 40 feet.
You can then figure out how much of that 4,000 sf you can fit into the basement and first floor. The rest is for residential.
Free zoning analysis, your complimentary holiday gift from:
Jim Hill, RA, LEED AP
Urban Pioneering Architecture