Code Update: Fewer Explicitly Banned Businesses, New Power-Tool Restrictions

Pinal County is proposing to replace Section 2.150.260 of its Development Services Code, the section covering home-based business. The county’s Home-Based Business page lists August 11, 2026 as the last day to comment.

This applies only in unincorporated Pinal County, to any property zoned residential or rural, since cities and towns write their own rules. Even where zoning allows a home business, deed restrictions or CC&Rs can still bar one. You can look up your parcel and district.

What changes

The table below compares the current code with the proposed draft, for Section 2.150.260 only.

	Current code	Proposed draft
Purpose standard	None. The section opens straight into requirements.	A new purpose clause says the standards are meant to ensure the use is “located and conducted in an inconspicuous manner under normal circumstances” and compatible with the character of the district and its other permitted uses. Neither inconspicuous nor normal circumstances is explained.
Prohibited-use list	A 10-item list forbids auto repair, barbershops, beauty salons, commercial food preparation, mortuary or embalming service, tattoo parlors, veterinarian services, kennels and pet grooming, welding, delivery services related to a commercial use, and any commercial use “not customarily associated with home occupations as a secondary use”	The draft deletes the entire list. Those businesses would instead be judged against the general requirements.
Size	Accessory building: 400 sq ft maximum. Dwelling: no more than one-fourth of the floor area of one story.	No numerical size cap. The draft relies on the existing Accessory Use definition, without saying how it applies in a permit decision.
Outdoor storage of materials	Banned	Materials allowed on up to 10 percent of the lot, out of any required front or side setback, materials capped at 7 feet high, screened to the height of the tallest item by a solid masonry wall, wood fence, or opaque enclosure
Display	No public display of stock-in-trade	No outdoor public display. Doors, shelving, display racks allowed.
Traffic	Must not cause any traffic congestion in the immediate neighborhood	Nothing causing on-street parking congestion or a substantial increase in traffic. Wording from A.R.S. § 11-820.
Power tools	No rule	Banned, except any used for typical household purposes. So is mechanical equipment, which is undefined and broader than power tools.
Hazardous materials	No rule	Nothing toxic, explosive, flammable, radioactive, “or other similar material or chemicals” used, sold, or stored
Waste and utilities	No rule	No “excess generation” of solid waste, and no use of utilities and public facilities “in amounts greater than normally provided for residential Use.” Neither excess nor normally provided is defined.
Structural changes	No rule	No structural alterations, additions, or installations that change the building’s principal use or occupancy classification
Where work happens	Within a dwelling or accessory building	Entirely within a completely enclosed building, apart from outdoor storage. A carport would not qualify.
Deliveries	No delivery-hours rule. (Running a commercial delivery service is itself a prohibited use, above.)	Commercial-vehicle deliveries only from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Permit	Required for every home occupation, no exceptions. Issued by the planning director to a full-time resident. Does not attach to the land, so a buyer never inherits one.	Required for every home-based business, no exceptions. Issued by the Community Development Director to the owner, or a tenant with the owner’s consent. Residency requirement dropped. Non-transferable, and terminates automatically when the owner or tenant changes. Permits issued before adoption stay valid unless the business is discontinued or there is a change in home ownership or tenant occupancy.
If you cannot comply	You meet the requirements or you cannot operate.	Rural districts only: can apply for a Special Use Permit from the Board of Supervisors under PCDSC § 2.151.010, subject to conditions including lawfully built enclosed buildings, no outward business appearance, screened outdoor storage, a personal and self-terminating permit, no more than three employees assembled at once, five commercial-vehicle deliveries a day, and 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. limits on clients and deliveries. Residential districts have no such option.
Employees	Resident employees not capped. No more than two nonresident employees, including nonresident family.	Residents and immediate family not capped. No more than two others.
Residential character	Shall not be changed by the use	Same, except doors, shelving, display racks. Neither version defines character.
Noise, fumes, odors	No sustained, unpleasant, or unusual noise or vibration, no noxious fumes or odors. No location given.	Same, with “inside or outside” the dwelling or accessory building spelled out.
Overnight accommodations	Not allowed	Not allowed, except for uses named elsewhere in the code
Unchanged	Five clients a day, two at a time. All parking on site, not on the street, with no wheel stops, parking lanes, or striping. One temporary commercial sign up to 24 by 24 inches during business hours.	Same.

Where it meets state law

A.R.S. § 11-820 bars a county from restricting a licensed home business from adding doors, shelving, or display racks, displaying a temporary commercial sign up to 24 by 24 inches during business hours, selling goods, traffic, parking, or delivery activity that does not cause on-street parking congestion or a substantial increase in traffic through the residential area, more than one client at a time, or employing residents, immediate family, and one or two outsiders. Counties may still impose reasonable operating requirements.

No home business is exempt from a permit

Pinal requires a permit for every home business, with no exceptions. Maricopa County does not. Directive DD-2017-07 has said since 2017 that its ordinance is not meant to reach an office or internet business with no non-resident employees, customer visits, or other impacts beyond what is customary in a residential neighborhood. No permit is required there if the business has no sign, no non-resident employees, no clients visiting, no commercial deliveries by vehicles over 10,000 pounds and no commercial or specialty vehicles over 10,000 pounds associated with the business parked on site, no outdoor storage or activity, an address not publicly advertised, and all of it inside 250 square feet of the dwelling.

A.R.S. § 11-820 does not require a county to impose a zoning permit on every home business, and Arizona nearly went further. SB1162 would have made home-based businesses uses by right, subject to deed restrictions, barred permit requirements outright for a defined category of “no-impact home-based businesses,” and, for every home business, barred a city, town, or county from requiring anyone to “obtain a home-based business license or other general business license” as a condition of operating. It passed the Senate 16 to 13 and the House 31 to 27, and Governor Hobbs vetoed it on April 4, 2023.

Some questions to think about

• Pinal County already has an excessive-noise ordinance that generally sets decibel limits by zoning district for site-specific noise in unincorporated areas outside Indian reservations, measured at the property line where the noise originates. The existing home-occupation section also contains, and the draft retains and expands, a separate rule barring “sustained, unpleasant, or unusual” noise, with no decibel level or property-line test. Why retain a second, vaguer standard for home businesses when a measurable one generally already applies?
• Auto repair and welding come off the banned list, and item 5 then bans power tools except those used for typical household purposes. Many forms of auto repair and welding would be impractical or impossible under that restriction. What is a typical household purpose, and does a table saw qualify?
• Item 6 could be read to bar toxic, flammable, and “other similar” materials property-wide, not only those used by the business. Would that reach the gas can for the mower and the propane for the grill? Item 5 carves out household purposes for power tools, and item 6 has no such carve-out.
• Item 5 scales outdoor storage to 10 percent of the lot. Why do the power tool, enclosure, and noise rules not scale with lot size at all? A saw in a barn on ten acres could be far from any neighbor. The same saw on a quarter-acre lot could be much closer to a neighboring residence.
• Item 5 requires all work inside a completely enclosed building, and a van is not a building. Would work performed with a garage door open still qualify? Why can materials sit in the screened yard when the person cannot, and where does that leave a mobile groomer or a plumber?
• The statute’s definition of a home-based business includes the “limited manufacture” of goods, while the same statute lets counties impose reasonable operating requirements. Is a near-total restriction on business use of power tools a reasonable operating requirement?
• The residential character standard is not defined. Whose judgment of character governs, and measured against what?
• Item 10, like the statute, bars delivery activity that causes on-street parking congestion or a substantial increase in traffic. Item 12 then bars commercial deliveries before 7 a.m. and after 7 p.m., congestion or not. A 6 a.m. delivery that causes neither on-street parking congestion nor a substantial increase in traffic passes one and fails the other, while the same van reaching a neighbor with no business at 4 a.m. falls outside this section entirely. What is item 12’s clock for?
• Why does the county regulate wheel stops, parking lanes, and striping on an onsite parking area?
• State law requires the county to allow a temporary commercial sign up to 24 by 24 inches during business hours. The county bans every other sign advertising the business. Why is the state’s floor also the county’s ceiling?
• The draft turns on terms defined in the code’s definitions chapter. Accessory Use, Accessory Building, Structural Alterations, and Utilities are defined there, and county staff have said the definitions are not changing. But Commercial Vehicle, which determines which deliveries the 7-to-7 window applies to, is not defined there. Section 2.185.040 defines it, for the Outside Storage and Parking chapter, as any vehicle used for commercial purposes, and by its own terms that definition applies only “when used in this chapter.” Is it meant to control here at all?
• Why is there no exception for a business nobody can see? A self-employed bookkeeper on a laptop needs a permit. A remote employee doing identical work in the same chair does not.

How to weigh in

The county’s Home-Based Business page lists August 11, 2026 as the last day to comment. It posts the existing ordinance, the current draft, and a redlined version showing the changes, and carries the comment form.

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