Stafford Township, NJ Home Business: Home Daycare (2026)

The definition in § 130-2B of the Land Use and Development chapter sets the numbers that decide whether a household is a family day-care home in Stafford Township, including Manahawkin. The residence must be approved by the Division of Youth and Family Services or an organization with which the Division contracts for family day-care. Child-care services must be regularly provided to no fewer than three and no more than five children, for no less than 15 hours per week. A child legally related to the provider is not included in the total, and neither is a child cared for under a cooperative agreement between parents for the care of their children by one or more of the parents, where no payment for the care is provided. The definition was added 10-24-1997 by Ord. No. 97-86.

The zoning side sits in Chapter 211. Family day-care homes appear by name as a permitted use in a long run of district sections, for example § 211-12A(6) for the Pinelands Village Zone (PV), added 5-3-1994 by Ord. No. 94-45, so a household that fits the definition is a use the district lists on its own line.

A larger operation is a different use. The Code defines a day-care center as the same thing as a child-care center, and the Neighborhood Commercial Zone lists "Child-care centers" as their own permitted use in § 211-14A(3). A home caring for more children than the five-child ceiling falls outside the family day-care home definition. Because the figures are printed in the definition, the Township measures the use by head count and weekly hours, not by the provider's own description of the business.

Any violation of the zoning chapter is prosecuted under § 211-36, with the penalty set out below.