UPDATE: Board of Supervisors Postpones Decision on Dog-Kennel Expansion

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors postponed its decision at Tuesday's planning meeting on whether Club K-9, a pet-boarding kennel on Crow Canyon Road, can expand from a 65- to a 100-dog facility.

The matter will go before the board again Nov. 9.

Supervisors Nate Miley, Scott Haggerty and Alice Lai-Bitker agreed that there was insufficient proof whether the expansion of the kennel violated or complied with local agricultural and land-use laws.

Club K-9, which offers day care and grooming services for pets, is perched on a hilltop near ranches and protected open spaces. It features 18 dog parks spread across 20 acres. Busy or vacation-bound pet owners leave their dogs in the care of on-site sitters.

"We are full to capacity every day," said co-owner Eric Fabianac, adding that there usually is a long waiting list for dog care around major holidays.

Established in 1996, the facility wants to open its doors to more dogs, but local environmentalists oppose the expansion, saying it violates land-use rules spelled out in Measure D. Alameda County residents passed the measure in 2000, hoping to protect agricultural and open-space land from sprawl.

"Club K-9 is an urban-serving, commercial-use facility," said Dave Schneider, a co-author of Measure D and member of the local Sierra Club. "Patrons are primarily urban residents putting their dogs in day care. It's not an open-space use, and it's not related to agriculture."

Schneider filed an appeal, asking the board to deny the expansion after learning about the proposal at a Castro Valley Municipal Advisory Council meeting earlier this year. The Board of Supervisors considers recommendations from the advisory council on planning issues affecting unincorporated Alameda County.

Schneider said the board upheld the tenets of the measure in response to similar planning issues in the nearby cities of Dublin and Livermore. Similarly, the board should uphold the measure — which also is designed to preserve watersheds and wildlife habitats, and reduce traffic congestion and pollution — in response to Club K-9's request, Schneider said.

"This is not an agricultural use whatsoever," he reiterated. "This is a completely different use than what horse ranches are used for. It's not a recreational outdoor facility. The primary use is permuted under Measure D."

Fabianac said he has been trying since mid-2008 to expand his business, but after the economy crashed, he and his business partner and wife, Lori, decided to expand by increasing their capacity rather than by building additional kennels.

"We're downsizing from what we had tried to do," he said.

Fabianac contends his business is consistent with Measure D.

"I don't know how you can separate a dog from the land," he said. "We're dedicating 100 percent of the land to dogs. It is my understanding that the original Measure D did include dogs as well."

Schneider said Measure D distinguishes between family dogs chasing balls and gnawing chew toys on the land, and farm dogs that work on the land for agricultural purposes, such as for herding and hunting.

"We don't discriminate (against) our clients by the purpose of their dog," Fabianac said. He said some of the dogs that board at Club K-9 are herders on their owners' farms and ranches.

As explanation about why the expansion of the boarding kennel has no essential connection to the land, Schneider pointed to a storage facility proposed for an open space in Livermore that the board shot down. The storage facility can operate anywhere, argued Schneider, so has no connection to the land.

"Measure D is like the Constitution in that it has to be interpreted," he said. "In the measure, some things are numerical and hard to confuse, but in this case, it's the language that's left open to interpretation."

Schneider said businesses that existed in agricultural regions before the passage of Measure D, including Club K-9, should be able to continue operating as before.

"We're not in any way trying to shut (Club K-9) down," he said. "It shouldn't be expanded," but it can remain at its current level of operation since it was there before voters passed Measure D.

"We offer a very unique service to our customers," Fabianac said. "I hate having to turn away up to 100 people every season. We are trying to accommodate our customers."

According to the online agenda for the Oct. 5 planning meeting, the Board of Supervisors and members of the West County Board of Zoning Adjustments had planned to deny Schneider's appeal, allowing the expansion of the kennel.

However, board members Miley, Lai-Bitker and Haggerty did not reach a decision, saying there were too many gray areas to determine if expanding the kennel would violate Measure D.

"The kennel is serving urban dogs (and so it violates Measure D) is what I'm hearing," said Lai-Bitker. "But in reality, urban dogs need these services, too. People who live in rural areas probably don't have a need for kennels because they already have the space."

"I thought we were trying to say that the kennel has to be connected to the land,"  Miley said to the planning council, who sit in a jurylike box to the left of the board members.

"I'm having a hard time with this," he said, adding that he needed to see the size and history of other kennels within the Measure D boundaries before he could make a decision.

"Every time Dick (Schneider) comes down, he says it violates Measure D. But every time you guys (the planning staff) speak, you say it doesn't. We need to deal with this gray area," Haggerty said.