Neighborhood Business Freedom Act
Overview:
The Neighborhood Business Freedom Act is designed to restore economic liberty and empower everyday entrepreneurs by preventing local governments from using restrictive zoning laws to block small-scale, home-based, or mobile businesses—such as home bakeries, tutoring services, food vendors, seamstresses, or mobile barbers—from operating within residential neighborhoods.
Why It Matters:
Across Illinois, especially in areas long overlooked for economic investment, hardworking families are turning to entrepreneurship to close financial gaps, support their households, and build generational wealth. However, outdated zoning laws and heavy-handed regulations often stand in the way.
The city prohibits dozens of specific activities in homes, including:
Tutoring or children-related instruction
Barber shops or beauty parlors
Catering or any food‑related business
All these fall under “prohibited business activities” for home occupations
What This Means for Neighborhood Entrepreneurs:
Chicago’s current policy blocks many families—such as stay-at-home parents, retirees offering tutoring, or home bakers—from starting small ventures in their own homes.
The Neighborhood Business Freedom Act would reverse these outdated rules, allowing small, low-impact businesses to operate legally—empowering local entrepreneurs and neighbors with minimal intrusion or traffic concerns.
This Act:
Removes unnecessary barriers for neighborhood-based entrepreneurship, keeping startup costs low for families seeking to earn a living.
Affirms community-rooted business efforts that have historically existed outside of traditional business corridors.
Restores economic self-determination to people who want to create local solutions to local needs.
Encourages youth entrepreneurship, giving young people more constructive pathways to work and ownership.
How It Works:
Bars municipalities from using zoning laws to prohibit micro-businesses that meet safety, income, and employee thresholds.
Prevents discriminatory enforcement of zoning codes that target certain types of neighborhoods or business models.
Offers model language for cities to create modernized, business-friendly zoning frameworks.
Provides federal incentives to localities that revise policies to support home-grown entrepreneurship.
For Illinois Families:
This Act honors the long tradition of turning kitchen counters into bakeries, front rooms into salons, garages into print shops, and weekends into business ventures. It recognizes that families shouldn’t need a lawyer or a permit maze to sell food, cut hair, or teach kids math in their own neighborhood. It’s about economic freedom—without interference.
Broad Appeal:
Whether you're a veteran launching a side hustle, a stay-at-home mom selling baked goods, a retiree offering tutoring, or a tradesman looking to start mobile work—this bill protects your right to earn a living with dignity and independence.
