Southampton Village, NY Home Business: Zoning & Home Occupation Permits (2026)

The operative standard is the definition of HOME OCCUPATION in § 116-2 of the Southampton Village zoning chapter. A home occupation is a gainful occupation customarily conducted within a dwelling by the residents thereof, clearly secondary to the residential use, and not changing the character of the structure as a residence. Five limits come out of that one definition: the residents themselves conduct it; it occupies no more than 1/3 of the ground floor area of the dwelling, or its equivalent elsewhere in the dwelling if so used; there is no external evidence other than an announcement sign; no mechanical or electrical equipment is used except customary household equipment; and the use is not one of the named exclusions. Those exclusions are a clinic or hospital, a barbershop or beauty parlor, a restaurant, a breeding kennel and an antique dealer.

A separate definition covers the HOME PROFESSIONAL OFFICE: the office or studio of a resident physician, surgeon, dentist or other person licensed by the State of New York to practice a healing art, a lawyer, architect, artist, engineer, real estate broker or salesman, insurance broker or agent, or teacher. Not more than two persons can be employed who are not members of the family, no employee can be of the same profession as the resident, and the office has to be in the main building and cannot occupy more than the equivalent of 1/3 of the floor area of one floor. A teacher means a person giving individual instruction in academic or scientific subjects to a single pupil at one time, and dancing, band instrument, piano or voice instruction is excluded.

Parking is set in § 116-14D. For a home occupation or home professional office the schedule reads 2 spaces for the first 150 square feet of area given over to the use, plus 1 for each additional 150 square feet or fraction thereof, but in no case less than 2 spaces, plus 1 per employee. Which residence districts list the use, and in what class, sits in the Table of Use Regulations for Residence Districts, which § 116-4C places in the Appendix as an attachment. A change in the nature of the occupancy of a building also requires a building permit from the Building Inspector under § A119-1A.