Asheville, NC Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

The City of Asheville regulates child day care centers as a "use by right, subject to special requirements" under Sec. 7-16-1(b)(15) of the Unified Development Ordinance, not as a use permitted outright everywhere. The standards vary by zoning district. In RM-16, a center is capped at 79 children, must sit on a lot of at least 20,000 square feet with 100 feet of lot width, and must carry side and rear yards of 25 feet, with the front yard matching the smallest existing home setback on adjacent lots.

In the Office district and Neighborhood Corridor district, enrollment is capped at 50 children with no minimum lot size specified. In Office II, the cap rises to 125 children on a 20,000-square-foot lot with the same 25-foot side and rear yards. In Urban Residential districts, enrollment is capped at 30 children and the center's gross square footage cannot exceed 6,000 square feet even though it may occupy up to 100 percent of the ground floor. Across every district, the ordinance imposes the same three site-design rules: any outdoor play area must be fenced or otherwise enclosed on all sides and cannot include driveways, parking areas, or land unsuited for children's play, and it cannot sit in a required setback or bufferyard; child drop-off and pick-up must be sited so it does not obstruct traffic flow on the adjacent public street; and parking cannot be located in the front yard.

Child day care homes, a smaller in-home category defined separately, are capped at eight children under Sec. 7-16-1(b)(16) and carry the same play-space, traffic, and front-yard parking restrictions but no minimum lot size. These zoning standards apply on top of, not instead of, the state licensing requirements administered by the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education, since Sec. 7-16-1(a)(2) requires every use by right subject to special requirements to be properly licensed and permitted under all applicable state law.