Summer Blain operates one of the island’s few kennels, the Blueberry Hill Pet Hotel in Monashka.
“We have a lot of dogs on this island but only a handful of residential boarding facilities," Blain said.
She can board up to eight dogs at a time.
“And I turn away a lot of people and I feel bad because I feel like there really is a need in the community for more services like this," she said.
Blain said residents that travel during the summer or incoming Coast Guard service members with pets add to the local need for pet boarding and daycare. According to borough records, two pet boarding facilities like the Emerald Island Redgate Pet Lodge have already been operating within homes inside rural residential districts in areas like Bells Flats, prior to the code changes going into effect. The Kodiak Island Borough's Community Development Director Chris French did not say if they were previously considered out of compliance or not.
Even Kodiak’s sole animal shelter, operated by the Humane Society of Kodiak, is contained within a light industrial zoning district in the city. The light industrial zone is intended for land-intensive commercial uses including some types of manufacturing according to borough code.
Blain wants to add a second location in Kodiak with kennel and daycare service. But the zoning wasn’t compatible at the sites she looked at.
In fact, across the entire borough, there wasn’t much compatible land at all. Pet boarding facilities are only allowed in areas zoned as Rural Neighborhood Commercial District, which currently just includes areas near Chiniak, or in an Urban Neighborhood Commercial District which requires a conditional use permit to do so.
“We have very few zoning districts where any of these uses are permitted. The ones that we do have, there’s very few amounts of the actual Borough that’s zoned in the Rural Neighborhood Commercial or the Urban Neighborhood Commercial," French said during a Borough Assembly meeting last month on June 26.
Blain at Blueberry Hill Pet Hotel asked the borough last fall to allow pet boarding facilities in areas zoned as business districts.
After a nine-month process, on July 17, the Borough Assembly unanimously approved the change, along with several other regulations for pet-related uses.
French said the borough code didn’t have clear definitions for pet boarding facilities or any definitions for pet-related uses. Now things like a pet boarding facility, a veterinary clinic or animal hospital and pet services are clearly defined in code. The adopted changes also require a conditional use permit to operate a pet boarding facility within a business district, urban neighborhood commercial district, rural neighborhood commercial district, as well as the rural residential 1 and 2 districts.
Going forward, when someone wants a conditional use permit for a pet boarding facility, then the planning and zoning commission will use the recently approved code changes to consider it on a case by case basis. French said that includes things like if the facility should be fully enclosed or how many parking spots it must have.
“The commission would establish the parking requirement based on the characteristics of the use," he said. "Pet boarding facilities can change depending on: Do they provide doggy daycare? Are they just overnight boarding? How many dogs do they manage, do they do other kinds of pets?”
The new regulations and zoning changes for pet boarding facilities, animal shelters and other pet-related uses went into effect immediately after the Borough Assembly’s meeting on July 17.
