Blaine, MN Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Blaine treats licensed home daycare as an outright permitted use rather than a conditional use requiring a public hearing, provided it stays within the state licensing category the code recognizes. City Code § 100-2 defines a 'group family daycare center' as a licensed facility accessory to a residential use that provides daycare for no more than 14 children at any one time, a count that includes every child belonging to any caregiver present in the home, whether or not they are enrolled clients. The definition folds in facilities licensed under the state's family childcare and group family childcare categories.

That use is listed as permitted, not conditional, across every district reviewed here: § 109-117(2) for the Single-Family (R-1) district, § 109-20(4) for Agricultural (AG), § 109-51(4) for Farm Residential (FR), and § 109-83(2) for Residential Estate (RE). Because it is a permitted use, a Blaine homeowner running a licensed group family daycare center does not need a conditional use permit or public hearing before the planning commission, unlike blacksmithing, small engine repair or other home-based trades that chapter 129's home occupation rules push into conditional-use territory in the farm and estate districts. A separate accessory use, commercial day care accessory to a legal conforming church or school, is permitted in the same residential districts under sections such as § 109-118(4), but that is a distinct use tied to an institutional host rather than a home-based operator.