- The property where you’re planning to work from home must have a house on it.
- You can’t use more than a third of the floor area of residential buildings on the site for work from home activities.
- You can’t have more than three people working on the property at the same time.
- The house has to continue to look like a house.
- You can’t create so much dust that:
- you can see dust in the air beyond the edge of the property
- you can see that dust has settled on the ground, on a next-door building or structure, or in a water source.
- If you're storing any material that's part of your business outside of the house, you need to make sure that it's covered so it can’t be seen from the outside the property.
- If the land is smaller than 1200 square metres, you won’t be allowed to do any work from home activity where you need to use heavy vehicles, or need to park these on the property or in nearby streets.
- You can’t park any vehicle associated with your work from home activity on a public road.
- You can’t sell any products from the property.
- You need to get consent for any kind of discharge you create as part of your work from home activity, and make sure you comply with the conditions of that consent.
- You must not exceed the noise limits for rural areas – see chapter 15.1.2 of the District Plan.
District Plan 15.1.2: Rural area work from home activity conditions
Criteria for signs advertising work-from-home activities in rural areas
The rules are the same as if you were in a residential area above, except:
- the maximum signage area must not exceed 1 square metre.
- only one sign can be displayed on any site.
Any signage that does not meet the criteria needs a resource consent.
There may be different rules for signage if you live in a heritage area or have a heritage-listed property.
If your business doesn't meet the criteria
If you don't meet the criteria above, you'll need to apply for resource consent to run your business out of your home. This is because your business may have an effect on your neighbours – for example, through noise or parking.
Resource consents
If you're turning an entire residential property into a business — for example, turning a house into a daycare centre or doctor's office — you'll also need to apply for a change of use.
Changing the use of a building