Want to innovate in your garage? Bayport, MN pop. 3,162 is more progressive than St. Paul, MN pop 287,151

In my quest for equity regarding the blatant discrimination between homeowners with attached garages versus those with detached garages, I find it refreshing that Bayport, MN a little town just north of St. Paul, home to Andersen Windows, actually has a more sensible and equitable municipal code when it comes to "home occupation" than Twin Cities own Saint Paul, Minnesota!

The first part of the Bayport, MN municipal code has been replicated here:

(78) Home Occupation. Any gainful occupation or profession engaged in, at, or from a dwelling unit by the occupant of the dwelling unit. Except for occasional outdoor educational activities, the "home occupation" must be conducted within the dwelling unit, and not within accessory buildings other than a detached garage if the dwelling unit does not have an attached garage*.

With that one addition, Bayport Minnesota trumps Saint Paul Minnesota in terms of permissible innovation!

Saint Paul zoning for whatever asinine reason draws a myopic line in the sand and claims that "all detached garages are accessory buildings and ALL accessory buildings are the same thing" -- no exceptions. See I agree that you might not reasonably expect to be able to operate your home based business out of your toolshed, or greenhouse -- then again, I suppose it depends on what your business is...and clearly your business probably isn't the cities business telling you what you can and can't do on your private property....but hey if they don't want you generating more revenue or increasing the value of your property, or the massive multiplier effect of your spending on other products and services, who am I to argue with a strategy that looks suspiciously akin to having the entire city of Saint Paul Minnesota declared a "superfund site"??

The people that write and enforce these codes need to take a class in semantics at a minimum and ideally philosophy where they might learn that just because you continually call something by a different name, that it does not fundamentally change what it is in essence.

Hey St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections (aka zoning), a garage is a garage, attached or otherwise.

You see the modifier "attached or detached" enhances "garage". Treating a detached garage as something else discriminates against the people that pay your salaries, and hopefully will continue to agree to fund your pensions....quid pro quo baby, you don't serve us, don't expect us to serve you....

So it turns out that a Google or an Apple COULD happen in a Bayport, Minnesota garage -- just don't expect one to happen in St. Paul, Minnesota anytime soon!

Today's Big Idea: In order to execute your big ideas, you may need to follow Jimmy Buffets advice and seek a change in lattitude. Even if that means moving one city over.

Mea culpa! It turns out that St. Paul could just look at its neighbor Bayport for fresh ideas and not cast that longing gaze at California...

Check out your city's municipal code -- you may be a second class citizen and not even know it!

In the mean time I think Bayport, Minnesota is an excellent place to start incubating ideas and companies that will drive tomorrows service and knowledge based economy.

* Underline added to help Zoning Zombies who frequently have at least one eye closed, either due to aversion to daylight, when most work occurs, or because they are distracted by fantasy job-posting boards for positions they can never attain. If only they would consider starting their own ebay business in their detached garage....wait a minute.....