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Faced with a child-care space crunch across Calgary, the city is hoping to make it easier to create day-home options through a bylaw change.
Home-based day-care operators will only be required to get a development permit rather than go through a cumbersome land-use amendment after changes were made by city council this week.
The bylaw, revisited by the city after the province released a new Child Care Licensing Act, was tweaked in an effort to make it easier for home-based day cares to take in a few extra children or open new spaces in communities throughout Calgary.
Historically, the city aligned its land-use bylaw regulations related to child care with requirements by the province, said Nelson Medeiros, a planner with the City of Calgary.
"They created a new type of home-based child care called group family child care and that was meant to accommodate anything from seven to 10 children.
"So, from our perspective, our bylaw amendments we discussed at council address that provincial licensing change," he added.
"It's a discretionary use, so we would still have to put up a site notice and neighbours can comment,"Medeiros said, "but the timeline is shorter, the price is cheaper and we can make those decisions much quicker."
The changes are welcome news to lawyer and educator Emma Fuerbringer.
Less than two years ago, she was a stay-at-home mom with her two daughters when some of her friends started asking whether she'd take care of their children.
They were frustrated by a low level of care and the lack of available childcare spaces in Calgary.
Fuerbringer, who wasn't interested in running a day care out of her home, got a second house and set up a child-centred day home.
"Within three months, we were overwhelmed with phone calls, so we started another one," said Fuerbringer, who now runs 13 day homes--each for up to six children -- through her business, VonKids. "It was very much by chance.
"We certainly didn't start with a big business plan and a grand design; we just wanted to provide a solution to some people."
Fuerbringer's business got another boost this week when council tweaked the bylaws regulating the location of childcare centres throughout Calgary.
Although there could be the usual concerns about traffic from neighbours, operators suggest up to 10 children in a home won't have a major impact on the community and will go a long way to easing the childcare crunch in Calgary.
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Several childcare agencies will be able to expand some of the home-based day cares because the regulations around group family child care (seven to 10 children) allow for an extra employee.
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According to a report by city planners, several communities on the city's outskirts have large populations of children and almost no licensed child care.
Tuscany, for example, has 1,937 children under the age of four and only 18 approved childcare spaces --all in day homes with fewer than six children.
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- reprinted from the Calgary Herald