Playbook for Regions
Playbook for Regions

BRIEF:

Child Care Friendly Regulations

BriefChild care friendly regulations streamline approval processes, reduce costs, and eliminate unnecessary barriers while maintaining health and safety standards. The goal is to make it easier for providers to open or expand and to reduce the costs they incur prior to opening, helping families access care faster and more consistently.

Examples:

  • Allowing child care as a by-right land use instead of requiring special or conditional use permits
  • Waiving application fees and creating expedited review timelines for child care
  • Adopting “no requirements greater than licensing” policies

Consider this approach to help increase the number of child care providers in the community and support child care business development.

START HERE
  • Interview child care providers about their recent experience navigating local approvals.
  • Convene a cross-agency meeting (planning, building, fire, licensing, etc.) to map the full approval process and identify opportunities for streamlining.
  • Identify one “quick win” to pursue - a fee waiver, expedited review timeline, waived requirements - something that could be implemented within 6 months.
  • Create a simple guide for prospective child care providers explaining the steps and contacts for local approvals (this may also be a coordinated state-level strategy to pursue ★).

The child care business model is tenuous, with the cost to provide care exceeding what parents can afford to pay. Providers operate on very thin margins, often having to rely on low staff wages to make the numbers work. This is even more true for providers who serve infants and toddlers, where requirements for lower teacher-to-child ratios mean that the cost to provide care is even higher. See National Academies in Learn More.

Because staffing levels are mandated to maintain safe and healthy environments for children, child care businesses are left with few options for reducing expenses. When prospective providers face lengthy approval processes, permit fees, and complicated requirements, they incur costs, and many never open or grow their business at all. Reducing facility costs prior to and after opening can help providers develop a more financially sustainable operating model, allowing them to shift revenue toward teacher wages, retention, and higher quality care.

In Virginia, providers must navigate requirements and approvals from multiple authorities, each with separate timelines and requirements. At a minimum, these typically include:

  • Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) child care licensing;
  • Planning and zoning;
  • Business licensing;
  • Asbestos inspection;
  • Building and fire; and
  • Health.

Streamlining and aligning requirements across organizations can greatly reduce financial barriers to entry and expedite families’ access to care.

Key Example

KEY EXAMPLE

“No Requirements Greater Than Licensing”

State child care licensing ensures safety and quality. Richmond did a review and surveyed other jurisdictions; they found no additional value in adding on top of licensing requirements.

For each step in your local licensing process, ask: if the state regulates child safety through licensing, what additional value does this local regulation add? Any regulation that does not create an additive value could potentially be modified or removed. See City of Richmond and California SB 234 in Learn More.

To address these business model challenges, regions can streamline and align their regulatory frameworks. Each governmental agency, whether at a local, regional, or state level, has the opportunity to align duplicative or conflicting regulations, reduce timelines, and defer or waive expenses with a goal of ensuring that regulations truly improve safety and care rather than simply adding cost. Streamlining results in more providers entering the market, existing providers expanding, and more options for families.

Regions and localities should seek to reduce costs, shorten timelines, and align or remove requirements. This work can be done in tandem with state-level advocacy to right-size licensing standards and fire codes. Take the steps below to start the process.

  • Audit the local regulatory experience from the provider’s perspective. Interview providers who have recently navigated the process and map every step from initial inquiry through final licensing approval. Identify which steps are most confusing, expensive, or time-consuming. Flag redundancies or conflicts between agencies, lengthy timelines, opportunities to reduce fees, or ways to provide technical assistance.
  • Review code requirement flexibilities while maintaining safety. The standards required by the International Building Code (IBC) are expensive for providers and not always right-sized to smaller businesses. However, code requirements are adopted by states, and options to modify them exist. Relationship-building with fire and building officials can help child care centers identify “equivalent safety” alternatives or variance processes. Oregon’s HB 2727 (in Learn More) documents several such alternatives, including enhanced smoke detection and direct egress in lieu of full sprinkler systems.
  • Start with quick wins that remove obvious barriers. Some changes require minimal political capital but yield significant results. For example, Seattle, Austin, and other cities had constraints to where child care could be located based on zoning, lot size, and parking requirements, and when these were modified, there was a significant increase in child care ready spaces (see Austin and Seattle in Learn More). Regions can review whether similar physical property requirements exist that serve no health or safety purpose.
Key Insight

KEY INSIGHT

Understanding State vs. Local Authority

In Virginia, the Uniform Statewide Building Code (USBC) supersedes local codes. Updates to child care licensing and building/fire codes occur at the state level. Localities cannot make building codes less restrictive than state requirements (Va. Code § 36-98). However, localities retain significant control over zoning and other local requirements, including whether child care is permitted by-right or requires a special use permit, parking requirements, setbacks, and lot coverage rules.

Localities can influence statewide improvements by highlighting region-specific barriers and offering real examples that demonstrate where streamlining is needed. One concrete example of regulatory barriers that took several years to overcome can be found in Caroline County.

Certain regulatory barriers consistently emerge as the most confusing, expensive, or time-consuming for child care providers. The table below outlines common challenges and reform opportunities.

Throughout the table, opportunities for state-level coordination (in addition to or instead of locally/regionally) are marked with a star: ★

Common Challenges for Child Care Supply Building

In the chart above, the following terms are used:

  • Local staff – Planning, building, fire, and health department staff who process applications and make administrative decisions
  • Local policy bodies – planning commission and city/county governing body
  • State (child care) licensing – VDOE Office of Child Care Health and Safety
  • State (building code) officials – VA Board of Housing and Community Development
  • Regional (child care) coalition – Ready Region coalition, child care resource and referral agency, or other regional coordinating body

Regions and the state have an opportunity to create an environment that encourages the opening and expansion of child care businesses. When regulations are streamlined, lower-cost, and more efficient to navigate, child care providers’ operating models become more sustainable and families have greater access to care.

Virginia-Specific Resources
Zoning and Land Use Reforms
Streamlined Permitting
Provider Guidance and Navigation
Family Child Care Home Protections
Research

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