Minnetonka, MN Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

The Minnetonka City Council wrote Minnetonka City Code § 300.15, subd. 14 to protect the character of residential areas by separating home occupations with minimal or no secondary impact from those with the potential for adverse effects on neighboring properties. Paragraph (b) makes a home occupation a permitted accessory use in all residential districts when every person who works in the dwelling unit lives there. Extra employees who work elsewhere are allowed, but they cannot come to the property on a regular basis. Paragraph (c) sends everything else to interim use status: non-resident workers on site, regular customer, client or patient visits, or any miss on the general standards. An interim use is allowed only with the appropriate permit and in compliance with every condition attached to it.

The general standards in paragraph (d) are specific. The business must be clearly secondary to the residential use and cannot change its nature. No more than 25% of the habitable area of the dwelling can be devoted to it, and none of the business can be conducted in an attached garage, a detached accessory building or outside any building. There can be no exterior evidence of the occupation, including exterior storage or signs, and no exterior alterations involving construction features not customarily found in dwellings, except where fire and building codes require them. Retail or wholesale sales on the premises are barred except by telephone, mail, Internet or other electronic medium, although garage, estate, yard and rummage sales are not excluded. The business cannot create additional vehicle trips in excess of 10 trips per day averaged over five days per week, with one trip counted for each vehicle that arrives and another for each vehicle that leaves. All parking must fit in a garage and the existing driveway, no more than four vehicles can be parked outside, and no business vehicle or visitor vehicle can be parked on public or private streets. Multi-family buildings are limited to two parking spaces in external parking areas. Noise, light, air and other pollution cannot rise significantly above the levels outlined in section 300.28.

Mortuaries, automobile or equipment sales, landscaping and lawn maintenance, massage therapy, and repair, service and painting of motor vehicles, appliances and small engines are prohibited as home occupations, along with similar uses the city reasonably determines.