A Mobile woman who has run a day care out of her home for nearly 28 years has the backing of her neighbors, her homeowners association and her clients as she seeks permission to nearly double the number of children she cares for. But she does not have the support of one key figure: her own city council member.
Deborah May has applied to increase her home-based day care’s capacity from five children to 10 at her house on Government Boulevard in the Landsdowne subdivision. The Mobile Planning Commission has already signed off on her application, but the final decision rests with the City Council.
District 4 Councilman Ben Reynolds said he is wary of expanding what he considers essentially a commercial operation inside a residential neighborhood.
“We want it to stop short of being a commercial operation. Basically, you got to convert your house in a residential neighborhood to business,” Reynolds said.
Under the city’s current rules, home-based day cares are capped at five children. Mobile updated its zoning ordinance in 2022 to allow operators to request an increase beyond that cap, provided they meet a series of additional requirements.
Several residents spoke in favor of May’s request at a public hearing this week, and no one spoke in opposition. If the council approves the request, May said she would care for the additional children with help from her daughter.
Reynolds said he believes May runs an excellent day care and does not doubt her operation specifically. His concern, he said, is precedent — both because the conditional use permit would carry over to future owners of the property, and because approving it could make it harder for the city to say no to similar requests elsewhere.
“Allowing this commercial operation to exist in a neighborhood will, in fact, create changing conditions for the neighborhood, to make it easier for the next person to come along to say, ‘Well, you did it for them, so why can’t you do it for us?’” Reynolds said. He added that he does not believe the expanded model is appropriate for residential areas with small lots.
May pushed back on the idea that her business would ever grow into a full commercial center, saying the overhead costs and additional staff a licensed center would require make that impossible for her.
“If I get a center, I could not afford to pay,” she told council members.
She also stressed how much local demand there is for more child care slots in her neighborhood.
“I’ve had repeated phone calls with children that needed child care,” May said. “I have a mother right now that is enrolled, that is actually delivering her (new) child today. And she has no place to put it.”
May’s attorney, Wanda Cochran, argued the day care’s presence has been unobtrusive for nearly three decades.
“Until she put out the notices that this hearing was today, none of her neighbors even knew there was a day care operating here,” Cochran told the council.
Cochran also questioned some of the additional zoning requirements the city imposes on expanded home day cares, including a rule requiring May to maintain six parking spaces on her property.
“I found it quite interesting the zoning ordinance requires her to have six parking spaces,” Cochran said during the hearing. “Infants don’t drive.”
Michelle Raybon, executive director of the Alabama Partnership for Children, told the council that operators like May are exactly what the state needs more of.
“There’s a shortage of child care across Alabama and, specifically, for infants and toddlers,” Raybon said. “And this issue is just not about child care. It’s also a workforce issue. If parents, working parents, particularly, do not have a place for their children to go, there’s going to be absenteeism at businesses.”
The Mobile City Council is expected to take up May’s request in the coming week.