The City of Merritt is looking for a missing link.

One more member is needed to round out a six-person task force the city is getting together to review home-based business bylaws, City of Merritt planning and development services manager Sean O’Flaherty told the Herald.

O’Flaherty said they currently have two people who represent businesses in Merritt’s downtown, two people representing home-based businesses and one neutral member of the community on the task force.

O’Flaherty said he still needs one more neutral member of the community to be on the task force.

“I need somebody from the community that is just community-minded and doesn’t have an opinion on home-based businesses. That’s tough to find,” he said.

The task force needs an equal representation of people who have a particular vested interests in the matter and those who do not have a bias, he told the Herald.

He said the task force will meet about four or five times to review the city’s current regulations in the zoning bylaw for home-based businesses to see where improvements can be made.

The members of the home-based business task force are being asked to bring forward two regulations regarding home-based businesses in other cities that can be reviewed at the first meeting.

“We’ll look at ours a little bit more critically, and refine it and make it a better product,” O’Flaherty said.

Once the final member of the task force is in place, a date for the first meeting of the task force will be set, he said.

Once it’s all set, the task force will make recommendations to council on how to improve the bylaw.

“We know that home-based businesses are an important part of any community. We know that a high percentage of business in any community is home-based, and it’s been trending that way for years ever since the Internet,” O’Flaherty said.

He said home-based businesses also act as a good option for people testing the waters to see of their business is viable.

O’Flaherty said people with home-based businesses can grow their operation from home, and when they need more space, the hope is they will move into the downtown core.

Part of what the task force aims to do is define what makes a neighbourhood residential and what makes a commercial block commercial.

“And where do you draw the line?” O’Flaherty said.

A motion to establish a task force concerning home-based businesses was approved unanimously by council in October following a report requested by former Coun. Alastair Murdoch concerning meetings and attendees per month to home-based businesses along with complaints that resulted in the discovery of parking and space restriction violations at A&M Tandem Massage on Parker Drive.

A&M Tandem Massage co-owner Nadine Jolly will be on the task force and parking will be one of the issues the task force discusses, O’Flaherty said.

Ultimately, the intention is to make a better policy, one which incentivises both home-based and downtown commerce, he said.

“We don’t want there to be any losers in this. We want everyone to have success, but not at the expense of our residential neighbourhoods,” O’Flaherty said.