WEST COUNTY : New Law to Prevent Day-Care Clusters

The Camarillo City Council has approved a law to prevent day-care homes from concentrating in a neighborhood, but with a provision exempting two existing day-care providers.

The council voted last week to require that all home day-care providers licensed to take in more than six children be located at least 300 feet apart.

The law, which was drafted partly in response to complaints about noise from day-care homes, makes Camarillo the first city in Ventura County to regulate distances between day-care providers, according to a member of the Camarillo Child Care Council. The council is an organization of day-care providers.

The 300-foot measure will apply in any direction from a day-care home’s property line, maintaining a distance of at least five to nine lots between each.

Day-care providers that want to be exempted from the distance requirement will have to pay about $1,200 to apply for a special permit.

Because city officials know of only two day-care homes that would be affected by the new law--one in the 1900 block of Hobart Drive and another on the adjacent Mandalay Court--council members decided to grandfather those two providers.

In addition to the minimum distance, the new ordinance sets other restrictions, such as requiring that day-care providers confine children’s outdoor play primarily to the home’s back and side yards.

Several day-care providers and other residents at the meeting pleaded with the council to reduce the 300-foot requirement to 200 feet, making it less restrictive.