NORTH OF MONTANA A tiff between neighbors over cello lessons being offered on this not-so-quiet stretch of 10th Street has led some to question the propriety of operating a business from a private home, especially when that enterprise disrupts the tranquility of neighborhood.
The delicate balance between free enterprise and quality of life issues are being tested by music teacher John Redfield and his neighbors, who went before the Planning Commission this week to have Redfield’s home occupation permit revoked. The neighbors allegedly recorded several violations by Redfield, including hosting more cello lessons than allowed, increased traffic congestion and noise pollution.
Neighbors complain that Redfield’s cello lessons, coupled with his wife’s daycare business, which includes a Hebrew immersion and fitness program, as well as puppet shows and other events, have no place in their residential neighborhood, and they want the music lessons silenced.
“Mr. Redfield is determined to maximize the house as he tries to recoup the rent he puts into this investment,” said Dan Ackerman, a neighbor who lives behind Redfield.“He is one heck of an entrepreneur, I’ll give him that. But he pushes everything to the ultimate limit.”
Fellow neighbor Margaret Richardson also admires the Redfields’ entrepreneurial spirit, but contends her quiet enclave isn’t the place for their businesses.
“I’ve never complained about the noise because I’m at work during the day, but I am concerned about retiring,” Richardson said. “This is not Yo-Yo Ma playing the cello.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, there were stake-outs by city staff and surveillance cameras at the behest of the Redfields’ neighbors to catch the couple in the act, but city staff found no violations of the permit.
Redfield, a music teacher for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, said he is complying with the conditions of his permit and has taken steps to limit the impact his business has on the neighborhood, including having parents drop off and pick up their children in the alley so they do not take up parking on the street.
“As a parent, there is nothing more important to me than my children,”Redfield said.“As members of this community, there could and should be nothing more important than our children. They are the future of our society.”
Behavioral scientists and educators agree that children are helped tremendously when they play an instrument,Redfield said.Not only does it build their self-esteem and improve their concentration, it builds mathematical skills, reading ability and creativity.
Redfield admits to having a day care at his home that is licensed for up to eight children and has hosted at least one puppet show there that attracted roughly 30 kids, but said he and his family have been unjustly harassed by neighbors. CAN’T STOP THE MUSIC A permit was granted to Redfield on Sept. 26 2006. As part of the permit, Redfield was allowed to serve only six students per day, and that the lessons would abide by the city’s noise ordinance. Teaching could not generate pedestrian traffic or vehicular traffic beyond that ordinarily generated in a residential district.
On Oct. 10, Redfield’s next-door neighbor, Pat Pyfrom, filed an appeal of the permit based on non-compliance. Over the span of a few weeks, Pyfrom and other neighbors said they watched as Redfield repeatedly violated conditions of his permit, holding 10 lessons on Sundays. In 17 days, Pyfrom said Redfield held more than six lessons eight times.
“No one is against teaching children,” said Pyfrom, a retired certified public accountant who does some work out of her home.“We just don’t want them next to us all the time,coming in and out. As far as the daycare center, that is licensed by the state.
“We are appealing what we can appeal, and we believe the cello businesses is secondary to none.”
Commissioners were faced with the difficult task of balancing the interests of small businesses and residents who want to maintain the nature of their neighborhoods.
A few years ago, the City Council proposed a new fee structure for small businesses applying for licenses, eliminating fees for those making under $40,000 a year.As part of that discussion, the council made it a policy to support those wanting to work from home as a way to create a larger tax base and encourage people to give up the “commute and pollute lifestyle,” said Councilman Kevin McKeown, the council’s liaison to the Planning Commission.
McKeown urged commissioners to be careful when considering new operating conditions for Redfield out of concern that they would inhibit others from working from home.
“We were heading down a slippery slope by putting so many restrictions on home businesses as to make them no longer viable,” McKeown said.
In the end, the commissioners voted to allow Redfield to continue offering cello lessons,but curbed the number of hours he could teach and mandated that he move a backyard fence five feet closer to his home and create parking spaces for parents to drop off and pick up their budding musicians.
Redfield will only be allowed to teach from noon to 8 p.m., Monday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the weekends, with a cap of six lessons per day with 15-minute intervals in between so two parents are not waiting in the alley at one time.
“What I am hearing here is that living (at the home) is secondary to the businesses going on in the house,” said Commissioner Darrell Clarke. “I can well imagine why that would drive the neighbors nuts.I think there has to be carefully constrained hours.”
Commissioners were careful about formulating a motion that would help the neighbors, but would not be so restrictive that it was counter to the council’s policies that encourage small business.
In the end, it seemed Redfield came out a winner, while the neighbors left dissatisfied.
Pyfrom and other neighbors wanted more restrictions, including a ban on Sunday lessons as well as lessons on holidays, giving them at least a few days without the traffic and cellos.
“We were hoping to get at least one day where we could enjoy our neighborhood in peace, especially since Sundays are his busiest days,”Pyfrom said. ret Richardson, neighbor.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2007. Read the original PDF.