Bill limits regulation of child care homes
The Arkansas House Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on Thursday endorsed a bill that would require local governments to treat a child care family home as residential property use in the application of local regulations.
Rep. Mary Bentley, R-Perryville, said House Bill 1155 would not force people who have residential daycare operations for young children “to do things that a commercial business would have to do as far as increasing sprinklers and all those things.”
“Fire marshals have come in and added unnecessary regulations to these folks, making it impossible for them to operate,” Bentley said. “We are just saying that a residential home is a residential home and you can’t add extra regulations for them to operate as a child daycare.”
The bill would define a child care family home as a childcare setting in which the caregiver provides child care in a family residence or a residence with a homelike environment. The Division of Childcare and Early Childhood Education shall require any child care facility seeking licensure to comply with applicable zoning and land use development regulations of the city and county where the facility is located.
Under the bill, local governments are barred from imposing on a child care family home any additional regulations that do not also apply to other residential properties, or stricter requirements than those in the Arkansas Fire Prevention Code. The bill does not restrict a local governing authority from, on a case-by-case basis, managing the flow of traffic and parking related to adjacent child care family homes. The Division of Childcare and Early Childhood Education may promulgate rules related to adequate fire protection and prevention in a child care family home under the bill.