Renting Commercial Property/Zoning Laws in Japan
 

I live in Oakland, CA and it's a very common practice here for musicians like myself to rent out a small warehouse to use as living quarters and a place to practice music/create art without disturbing neighbors since well, there are none.

I was wondering if anyone is familiar with zoning laws in Japan and whether it's legal or not to rent commerical space like a warehouse/retail shop and sleep/live in the back. I read somewhere that Japanese cops don't care that much since space is so limited in large cities so they want people to get the most use out of the space they have, but that was just a random website so I'm not really sure.

I could just get a normal apartment and rent rehearsal space at a studio when I want to play drums but it'd be nice to get a warehouse or something similar in a commerical district so I could play all night without disturbing anyone and have the occasional warehouse party and have bands play and have visual artists put on exhibitions and stuff. Maybe this sort of thing is very unusual for foreigners to do in Japan I dunno..it's just a really common thing where I'm from and in most big American cities like LA/NYC so I figured I'd ask. Usually the establishment is on file as a "Not for Profit Art Gallery" or something like that so you don't need live music permits or a business license or anything.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated of course :)

Japan has surprisingly lenient zoning laws. They`re more focused on the type of building to be built, and not as much on the use of the building after it has been constructed. There are tons of people who live above/behind/in a room inside a factory. As you have no interest in actually building a warehouse you shouldn`t have any trouble. There are pollution and noise laws, but if it`s a warehouse to begin with you should have no difficulties.

However, renting that type of space isn`t cheap. I think that is where you will have the biggest problem. Warehouses are large. There is a small warehouse up for rent within walking distance of my house - outside of a major city, not all that close to a train station, etc... And it`s still 400,000yen a month.

But if you can go beyond that and actually rent, there will be limits on what you can do and the number of people you can bring in, etc. If you`ll have people coming in - even if you won`t be profiting - I am fairly sure you`ll need permits.

thanks for the input :)

The zoning you would want for urban jamming would be exclusive industrial.

Zoning is almost non-existent in Japan. In many other parts of the world, neighborhoods and cities are zoned into residential, commercial, and retail areas. In Japan this is not the practice. You can find factories, houses, restaurants, and stores all within the same block, some even sharing the same building.

Many shop owners have apartments attached to (or located behind) their shops. This is common practice even in factories. No one will see your living in a warehouse as abnormal. You might even have neighbors living in the warehouses surrounding you, so you'll likely want to keep the noise down.

Zoning very much exists in Japan, but a greater latitude is given in what can be done in each zone than some other countries.

Exclusive industrial is the only zoning designation where residences are not permitted. This won't really help you searching though, better to not even bother thinking/caring about zoning in your case.