Bristol, PA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Bristol Borough Code § 27-320, Use 7E defines a family day care center as a facility where care is provided for four to six children, or up to four disabled and/or elderly persons, at any one time, who are not relatives of the caregiver, in space that is also being used as a family residence. Use 2D, the Day Care Center, is a separate listing in the same section, and the code places both uses on the special exception list for the R-1 Residential District.

The approval path has two gates. First, the Zoning Hearing Board must grant the use as a special exception. Second, before the Board gives final approval and before the Zoning Officer issues a permit, the applicant must hold a registration certificate from the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare, and/or the Pennsylvania Department of Aging when adults are in care. The use must be conducted in a building designed for residential occupancy and for the safety and well-being of the occupants.

Outdoor space carries the numeric requirements. Each child must have a minimum of 200 square feet of contiguous outdoor play area, and each disabled and/or elderly person must have 100 square feet of contiguous recreation area. That area cannot include any impervious surface or parking areas. The play or recreation area must be enclosed by a four-foot high fence that the Borough deems appropriate, and it must be located to the side or rear of the property, never in front.

Staffing is capped as well. The provider can employ no more than one person other than resident members of the immediate family. A household that wants a larger enrollment than the Use 7E numbers is outside this home-based category and has to look at the separate Day Care Center use instead.