NEW SCOTLAND — The planning board here approved Lauren Bachner’s kennel operation last Thursday, after a failed motion to deny the operation, and months of neighbor petitions and board delay.
“The motion passed. You’re up and running,” Planning Board Chairman Charles Voss told Bachner after a split vote.

The planning board voted, 3 to 2, to approve the facility at 425 Unionville-Feura Bush Road, with board members Robert Stapf, Jo Ann Davies, and Kurt Anderson voting in favor of the kennel, and Voss and Thomas Hart voting against it.

Bachner’s family hugged her after the decision, and Jo Ann Davies told her, “You’ll be fine. Welcome to the town.”

Opposition

The public hearing closed at a previous meeting, but the planning board accepted and read into the record three new letters, all of which were against the kennel being allowed to relocate from Bethlehem to the Unionville-Feura Bush neighborhood zoned Residential Agricultural.

One letter, by Katy Irani, bemoaned the loss of “quiet enjoyment of property” in a rural district, if the day care and overnight boarding dog kennel were approved.

A second letter, from Donald and Linda Haskell and read by Voss, said that the town should require video surveillance of the facility. The letter stated that the ratio of bacteria in dog feces versus horse feces is 1 to 3. Bachner’s 7.4 acre-lot previously housed horses, and her plan for the kennel includes renovating the stables into the dog facility.

A third letter, from David F. Anderson, noted an adversarial tone between the board and residents who had attended previous meetings about the kennel. He called for the board to “be a neutral party looking out” for the good of competing private parties.

Board response

Voss said that his opposition to the kennel project had not changed since the previous month.

“I am not in favor of the project,” he said. “It’s a residential neighborhood…. Often, we find our zoning code out of sync” with current use, he said. The Residential Agricultural zoning in the neighborhood was established decades ago because of its proximity to the railroad, Voss said.

“I have no animosity toward this applicant. I think kennels are wonderful businesses. We need them. We have approved them,” Voss said. The board approved a previous kennel application the same month that Bachner approached the board for her business.

Bachner’s proposal “doesn’t fit with the nature of the neighborhood,” Voss said.

Planning board member Robert Stapf disagreed, saying that residents who want to change the zoning laws should work to do so.

“Our responsibility is to review the zoning law” and make determinations for current applications, Stapf said. “This is a reasonable application under the zone,” he said.

Board member Jo Ann Davies said that Bachner will have a difficult task meeting all the conditions of the town for the project, including renovations with a sound transmission class rating of 56; providing an engineer-stamped blueprint to show all changes; keeping windows and doors closed except for entrance and egress; using block-glass windows, concrete floors with no drains, solid walls to separate each dog, and covered metal waste containers; and a maximum of 25 dogs on site per day.

Voss moved to deny the application, and Hart seconded the motion. The motion failed to carry, with Voss and Hart voting to deny it, and Anderson, Davies, and Stapf voting to allow it.

Bachner told the board that she would have 10 dogs in day care per day, with two to five dogs groomed per day by her employee, who comes in three days per week.

“I feel like I’m in a math class,” Hart said.

Bachner said she was concerned about the requirement for concrete in the facility’s outdoor runs.

“I do have dogs who will not go to the bathroom on concrete,” she said.

Her attorney, Pam Robich-Wright of Albany, said that Four Paws does not spray down concrete at the end of the day.

“We don’t do that,” she said. “That’s not our procedure.”

The board removed the outdoor concrete requirement, and Bachner said that the outdoor runs would, instead, have grass.

“Pretty yellow grass,” quipped one audience member.

Bachner, who previously addressed worries about noise from barking dogs, stated earlier that dogs bark only when stressed or upset.

“…at Four Paws Inn, life is about the dogs and their comfort. A dog that is stressed is not happy. A barking dog is not happy. We do everything in our power to ensure that our guests are happy and not stressed,” she stated previously.

“Because our dogs are happy, they are not barking,” she continued. “Thus, we are not a noisy facility.”

After the planning board meeting, Bachner told The Enterprise, “I just have a lot of work to do. I’m looking forward to being a neighbor and being a town resident.”

As the approval process dragged on for months, Bachner said she had to close her business in Bethlehem as the lease ran out before she could move to the new location.

Before the neighborhood opposition, Bachner had said that she would like to build a home on the foundation of the house that formerly sat on the property, before it burned down.

Asked last week if she planned to live on the kennel property, Bachner said, “I would like to.”

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Approved a variance request by Blackbird Prime Properties to subdivide its 33-acre manufactured-home park at 1990 New Scotland Road into two lots. The plan includes a common-use driveway, according to surveyor Cynthia Elliott.

One of the three Blackbird partners wants to be bought out, and the property must be subdivided and refinanced before it is sold, Elliott said.

“We’re working on making this a beautiful community,” Elliott said.

The owners have “done a great job…improving the site, overall,” Voss said. “I have no issue with the variance referral.”

The project will return to the zoning board of appeals for final approval; and,

— Heard a letter read by resident Sharon Boehlke, who said that board members’ attendance records, and town advertisements of board meetings, are “deplorable.”

“We have a right to come and hear about these projects,” she said. “More people need to start coming to these meetings. The Spotlight and The Altamont Enterprise only cover what they want to cover.”

Boehlke complained about a department of public works project on Route 85, and about early and late truck noise from a nearby business.