Sterling Heights, MI: Auto Repair on Residential Property (2026)

03 lists the accessory uses allowed alongside a one-family dwelling in the R-60 through R-100 districts, and subsection F addresses home auto repair directly. It permits minor automobile repair but draws two hard lines around it. First, it excludes major automotive repairs, including bumping and/or painting, meaning bodywork, frame straightening and paint jobs are not accessory uses no matter how minor they seem to the owner. Second, and separately, it bars any repairs on vehicles not owned by persons living in the residence, which rules out running a repair business for customers' cars even if the work itself is minor; the accessory-use exemption only covers a resident fixing their own vehicles.

03 alongside home occupations in subsection D, the same general accessory-use constraints functionally overlap: the work has to stay incidental to residential use, cannot require equipment or machinery uncommon to residential areas, and cannot create traffic, parking, noise or other external effects beyond what a single-family home would normally generate. 03(F) accessory use, and code enforcement staff treat the ownership test, whose car it is and whether they live there, as the dividing line in practice.