Caldwell, ID Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

Section 10-12-03-14 of the Caldwell City Code, added by Ordinance 3670 on April 21, 2025, sets zoning specific-use standards for daycare facilities layered on top of state licensing. Every in-home daycare, daycare center, and preschool must still hold Idaho state licensure regardless of how many children it serves, and must file a copy of that state license with the Planning and Zoning Department within thirty days of receiving it. The size threshold matters for where a daycare can locate: an in-home daycare cannot care for more than twelve children, counting the provider's own children under age thirteen, and any daycare serving thirteen or more children must be located in a nonresidential facility rather than a house.

Operators must show a paved on-site pickup, parking, and turnaround area on their site plan so drop-off traffic does not spill into the street. , a limit the Director can only relax through a Special Use Permit. Outdoor play space carries its own building-safety rules: it must be completely enclosed by a minimum six-foot nonscalable fence to keep small children in and screen the yard from neighbors, play equipment cannot sit in the front yard, and in residential areas next to an existing home the play area must go unused after dusk.

The code's catch-all nuisance standard bars any in-home daycare from emitting lighting, noise, fumes, smoke, dust, odors, vibration, or electrical interference that can be detected outside the dwelling, folding childcare into the same neighbor-protection standard used for cottage industries elsewhere in Chapter 10.