Bulldog

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“Two bites at the apple are not allowed,” Hall wrote in a Feb. 2 memo to the town planning and zoning office. “The business has not changed substantially so as to respond to the objections to the original application. Therefore, the application should not have been considered, let alone granted.”

Zoning Administrator Matt Boulanger wrote, in his January approval, that the scaled-back operations were substantially different to allow for a new application. The primary difference is that Pederzani no longer accepts vanloads of dogs at her home on Lamplite lane. She has secured space at the Green Mountain Masonic Center on Bishop Avenue for these events, when dozens of adoptions are typically facilitated on the same day. These are the events that caused the most disturbance in the neighborhood.

Other conditions of the permit approval are the creation of a new parking spot at Pederzani’s home and a plan for the on-site storage of waste from the dog rescue. Pederzani has also stopped using the kennels in her backyard — the yard is now used only for morning dog walks, one at a time, supervised by a volunteer. Dogs are also walked one at a time through the neighborhood.

“The road and its shoulder are public property,” Pederzani wrote in a home business plan submitted to the zoning office. “Any person can come into any development to walk their dog provided that walker and dog are acting within the law.”

She said Williston police officers recommend calling the police department “if there is any interference with that freedom.”

In his permit approval, Boulanger determined that the use of the backyard for walks does not constitute what would be an impermissible “outdoor workspace” and keeps the operation within the required maximum of 25 percent of the home. The operation is primarily run out of a 290-square-foot, one-car garage.

Boulanger also determined that, with adoption events now happening off-site, the rescue will not generate any undue traffic in the neighborhood; that the operation will not violate the town’s noise ordinance; and that the application could be approved by him without a DRB hearing because the nonprofit has no employees, only volunteers.

“(DRB) review is not required for this application,” Boulanger wrote. “(It) can be reviewed and approved administratively.”

In their appeal, the neighbors argue that the operation generates enough traffic that the application should have been reviewed by the DRB. They also contend that the use of the backyard violates the zoning prohibition on outdoor workspaces for home businesses and that the operation violates a nuisance clause in the town bylaws.

“The presence of the commercial kennel in a residential neighborhood is a nuisance,” Hall, the neighbors’ attorney, wrote in his Feb. 2 letter to the town. “(It) results in smells, noise and traffic, which, in the context of a residential neighborhood, is a nuisance, and this is not expected to change.”