MC kennel changes scrapped

Madison County home breeders of dogs and cats can once again sell their young animals without needing a special use permit.

The Madison County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to return to the original ordinance after a public hearing last week that was part of the supervisors regular joint meeting with the Madison County Planning Commission. Supervisors decided against amending the county’s kennel zoning ordinance after listening to accounts from county residents. They had previously voted to delete the last line at the recommendation of the planning commission at their regular meeting Dec. 8, 2009 meeting.

Madison County residents spoke out for a protection of their “home litter” rights at the March 3 joint planning commission-board of supervisors meeting.
The supervisors do not usually vote, except in emergency cases, immediately after public hearings, Supervisors Chairman Eddie Dean said at the beginning of the meeting. However, possibly in responses to the number of residents present, more than 50, supervisors voted at the meeting to support the current kennel zoning ordinance and not to change it.

“The proposal before the public is to define kennel as ‘a place designed or prepared to house, brood, breed or handle or otherwise keep or care for dogs or cats for sale or in return for compensation,’” County Attorney V.R. Shackelford said at the meeting. “The proposal is to eliminate the current last sentence which reads ‘home litters kept less than six months are not to be included.’”

However, several members of the public spoke about the potential problems if the last line were removed. County residents argued that this would mean that any citizen who wanted to sell, or receive compensation, for a puppy or kitten would have to acquire a special use permit that would likely exceed the amount of money made on the sale of the animal.

“It does clearly show that there is a difference between the initial, first part of that ordinance and the second part,” Madison County resident Ralph Nicholson said at the hearing. “The distinction is a protection for people who have dogs and have an occasional litter and sometimes they sell them to friends or whatnot – it protects them by leaving it in there.”

The ordinance was brought into question in July 2009 by a resident seeking protection from neighborhood dogs apparently not available within the current animal control ordinances. The definition of kennel was explored because the dogs are associated with a kennel advertised on-line but that is apparently not defined as a commercial kennel by the county because of the home litter exception, Criglersville resident Bonnie Dixon said in a follow-up interview.

“I requested that (supervisors) review the dog policy in the county after long-standing problems that I had – after children that were visiting my home were chased and terrorized by dogs,” Dixon said at the public hearing. “There are two issues here – protecting neighbors from dangerous dogs allowed to roam and abiding by existing ordinances.”

Members of the planning commission had recommended to the supervisors that the last line of the ordinance be removed at a previous meeting. The removal of the line could make it easier for the county to regulate kennels in the county as it would define a “commercial kennel” and require anyone operating such a kennel to have a special use permit. Dropping of the final line of the current ordinance – concerning home litters – was explored as a way to stop people from running commercial kennels at their homes getting past the regulations imposed by the permit.

“We have to figure out how to write the language to get at what you want to do in a way that if (county officers) need to go enforce the ordinance they actually, based on information they can observe, can gather facts that say whether your ordinance is complied with or not,” County Administrator Lisa Robertson said at an earlier meeting. “Part of the problem here is that the language is not very clear under the circumstances that keep popping up.”

After listening to members of the public, several commissioners changed their votes and decided to recommend against altering the ordinance. The general theme of the commentary was that in changing the ordinance to no longer provide an allowance for home litters many people who raise a minimal number of animals would no longer be able to do so.

“I think I made a mistake when we voted to recommend what we did to the board of supervisors,” Planning Commission Chairman Rodney Lillard said. “I went along with the proposal (because) the committee did a lot of work, looked at a lot of different issues and I think they tried to recommend something (but) … I’m not sure making any changes to what we have makes that any better – I don’t think this helps any.”