New Britain, CT Building Safety: Childcare Center Rules (2026)

New Britain added its Child Daycare dimensional standards to the Zoning Ordinance at Section 270-40-40.260 on March 16, 2023 (Item #36000-3), setting three numeric thresholds a facility must clear before the Zoning Board of Appeals will approve it as a special exception use under Section 270-40. First, Section 270-40-40.260.10 sets a minimum lot area of 6,000 square feet for any parcel hosting a daycare, regardless of licensed capacity. Second, Section 270-40-40.260.20 scales that requirement to enrollment: the lot must provide at least 250 square feet of lot area for every child in care, so a larger program needs proportionally more land even above the 6,000-square-foot floor.

Third, Section 270-40-40.260.30 requires 100 square feet of open play space on the lot for each child, though the ordinance builds in a documented alternative: an applicant that cannot meet the play-space ratio can instead submit a play schedule to the Zoning Board of Appeals identifying how many children will use the play area at specific times and how close the facility sits to a public park, letting staggered scheduling substitute for raw square footage. These standards sit alongside the general home-based-use limits in the same Article; a home-based daycare serving more than six children is separately barred from qualifying as a home professional office under Section 270-40-40.280.130, pushing larger operations into the standalone Section 270-40-40.260 track instead.

Because the daycare use requires special exception approval, an applicant also needs the site plan review process under Section 280-60 before opening, and the facility must still meet the underlying building, health and fire code requirements that apply citywide.