By Renee Worthing
Register Reporter


Sanford Springvale Family Childcare Advisory Committee, a group of Sanford child care providers, is pushing for changes to the town’s zoning laws, which will affect how many children a child care facility can serve.
According to state regulations, beginning  in August,  daycare providers must count their own biological children under the age of 5. Family child care facilities in Sanford that now care for six children, including their own, may have to turn children away in order to comply with both state and local policies.
Under state regulations, family child care providers are able to care for up to 12 children, counting their own, but Sanford’s zoning for child care facilities operating in residential areas only allow for six children, whether or not the children are their own.
 If left unchanged, providers will have to turn away children they already care for in order to meet the six child ordinance in Sanford.
A2Z Daycare Owner Jennifer Duty, who spoke during the May 20 council meeting, said if Sanford does not raise the maximum number of children a provider can serve, she will have to turn away one of the children she’s been caring for since birth.
Duty said when she learned of the state’s new regulations, she began talking to other providers who were also concerned about having to turn away a child in order to comply. Duty organized the Sanford Springvale Family Childcare Advisory Committee, which went to Sanford Town Planner James Gulnac to push for a revision of the zoning laws.
Gulnac said the proposed changes to the zoning ordinance would increase the number of children allowed at family childcare facilities, eliminating the need for providers to dismiss children from a program.
The zoning changes, recommended by the planning board, will define family child care providers in two parts – one that provides care and instruction for less than nine children and one that provides care and instruction for between nine and 12 children.
Gulnac said he supported the zoning changes because there are many children in town who need the services of daycare facilities.
“It’s an economic issue, too,” Gulnac said.
He said day care facilities provide a necessary service because often both parents work.
“What this will do is enable those providers who have their own children to maintain their business,” he said.
Duty said the Sanford Springvale Family Childcare Advisory Committee originally wanted the revision to include facilities that care for up to 12 children, but she said the planning board was not comfortable with recommending across the board approval for that many children.
Instead, the planning board recommended individual site plan reviews for providers who wish to care for between nine and 12 children. It also affords the planning board the opportunity to determine if such a daycare would be appropriate for the neighborhood.
“They said we could have eight children without a site plan review, which would take care of the majority of day care providers,” Duty said.
She said the proposed zoning changes are a “step in the right direction.”
Her family childcare facility has been open for seven years – three years before her son was born.
“This is what I always wanted to do,” she said. “As of Aug. 1, I can only have six children in my care, so someone has to go and it won’t be my son.”
Duty doesn’t want to turn away any of the children she has been caring for since birth.
“These children are part of my family,” she said. “They eat at my dining room table.”   
To contact Renee Worthing, email news@intheregister.com or 282-4337 ext. 240