Hercules, CA Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

270 sets the citywide framework for home occupations, requiring that the use stay compatible with and secondary to the property's residential character. The area devoted to the business is capped at 1 room or 20 percent of the dwelling's gross floor area, whichever figure is larger, and any home occupation run out of a garage cannot eliminate or repurpose the required off-street parking spaces for that use. Staffing is tightly limited: only dwelling-unit residents can work in the business, unless the Community Development Director approves a single nonresident employee after finding the worker operates under the resident's direction, is genuinely necessary to the operation, will not need the home's required parking or create on-street parking problems, and would not be noticeable to the average neighbor under normal circumstances.

No exterior operation of any kind is permitted, and the code bars several categories outright: assembling employees, workers, subcontractors or equipment for off-site work; storing equipment, vehicles or supplies outside the dwelling or an accessory structure; boarding or treating animals for profit; teaching classes of 4 or more people at once; repairing more than 1 vehicle at a time; and storing toxic or hazardous materials. A home occupation also cannot generate noise, odor, electrical disturbance, dust, vibration, fumes or smoke that is readily discernible at the parcel's exterior boundary, and it may use no more than 1 motor vehicle of three-quarter-ton size or less, owned by the resident and kept in off-street parking.