Montebello, CA Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

Montebello Municipal Code Section 17.14.020 sets the accessory-use list for the R-1 single-family residential zone, and item 3 of that list permits day care for twelve or fewer children, provided the home is licensed by the state. The same accessory use appears in the R-A Residential Agricultural zone's permitted-use list at Section 17.12.020, item 6, so a licensed family day care operator does not need a conditional use permit or separate zoning clearance to run a home day care in Montebello as long as enrollment stays at twelve children or fewer and the state license is in hand.

The accessory-use list sits alongside the zone's other by-right accessory uses: up to three household pets, item 2; the renting of not more than two rooms to not more than four boarders, item 4; signs under Chapter 17.62, item 5; off-street parking, item 6; horsekeeping under Chapter 17.68, item 7; and noncommercial horticulture and agriculture, item 8. Because day care sits in the accessory-use list rather than the conditional-use list in Chapter 17.70, a Montebello property owner running a state-licensed home day care for twelve or fewer children does not go through the planning commission review that a larger, unlicensed or non-accessory use would trigger.

Exceeding the twelve-child cap or operating without the required state license removes the use from this by-right accessory category and would require the operator to seek whatever conditional approval the zoning code otherwise demands for a larger child care use.