Teachers are not criminals: the Stokes zoning case.(music teacher Nancy Stokes)(Interview)

Over the years, zoning has been an issue for independent music teachers (IMTs) with home-based studios. Now, with more and more planned suburban communities where homeowners associations set rules, the issue is gaining prominence. In Atlanta, Nancy Stokes brought the issue to a forefront.

Stokes is an independent piano teacher-turned-activist. Since February 2001, when the DeKalb, Georgia, County Commission denied a permit that would have allowed private music instruction in Stokes's home, she found her voice as a spokesperson for zoning issues.

Other music teachers rallied to her defense, sparking protests outside DeKalb's commission meetings and letter-writing campaigns. In July, after a long and costly appeal to the county superior court, Stokes, a member of the Atlanta Music Teachers Association, ultimately regained the right to teach in her home.

Nancy Stokes, before purchasing a home in DeKalb County with her husband, Lane, in 1993, says she obtained written permission from the local homeowners association and verbal permission from several neighbors to start a studio. However, according to Stokes, the same neighbors have been against her home studio since the day she started teaching. In late 2000, two neighbors formally came out against her, citing her need to obtain a special land use permit (SLUP). DeKalb residents must obtain this permit, on the books since April 1999, to lawfully bring customers, or students, into their homes. IMTs and other small home-business owners, such as academic tutors, find the $400 application fee for an SLUP prohibitive. They also must submit corroborating documents to support their application, adding to the cost and red tape. In addition, time is an issue; it took until February 2001 for the commissioners to hear and deny Stokes's petition.

When her neighbors complained about the "traffic" from Stokes's twenty-eight students, four out of seven commissioners denied the permit. The opposition commissioner did not mention the traffic as the reason for Stokes's denial, instead alluding to noise and the cluster-home design of the neighborhood. On appeal, the superior court judge ruled in favor of Stokes, saying the "close vote turned on what was never raised as an issue before the board (noise) and, most importantly, an issue upon which no evidence was presented."

Stokes estimates that she and her husband spent $25,000 on the entire process. Stokes says the cost of moving again and reestablishing her clientele would be too difficult financially, and she would have to reapply for the SLUP if she changed locations. So the family has stayed in the subdivision, despite trouble from the neighbors persisting even after the appeal.

Commissioners will debate a new law, aimed at providing a bandage--not a cure--to the county's zoning issues. The ordinance will permit home "educational services," as long as teachers see one student at a time, for no more than four hours a day and no later than 7 P.M. This does not bode well for music teachers, who often see students at night and have siblings or group lessons in home studios. The city of Decatur, located in DeKalb County, has its own city laws that allow hame music instruction. These supercede the county restrictions. Decatur teacher Ken Newton spoke in front of the DeKalb commissioners in late October, citing an ordinance in neighboring Cobb County that places no objectionable restrictions on teachers. The commissioners were receptive to studying the Cobb County law. At press time, they are still reformulating the forthcoming DeKalb ordinance.