A dog kennel looking for a home in the closed Haldi Road school seems to have found some support in the community, but not all neighbours followed the pack.
Several residents submitted letters ahead of Monday night's public hearing, but only one stood to speak against the rezoning at city council.
"I am against this. There's so many unanswered questions again on the proposal. Having a dog kennel in the neighbourhood, containing anywhere from 20 or 30 dogs is going to make a lot more noise than chickens in somebody's backyard," said Jan Sevin, in reference to council's recent decision against backyard chickens.
The rezoning will remove the words "community care facility" and "community care therapeutic" from the official community plan and add "animal breeding and boarding," though council heard the owners don't plan on breeding.
"The dog noise are higher decibels," said Sevin, comparing a canine's sound to that of a motorcycle.
The doggy daycare didn't conjure near the same outrage as a proposed women's addiction centre. Instead, several of the key organizers from past years came out in favour of the kennel.
"This brings mostly the decisions back from being exclusively in the grasp of council members to a joint effort between city planning and city council. This would be a return to what was in place," said Tore Pettersen, who was one of the plaintiffs in a case asking the court to declare invalid the April 2013 council rezoning of 5877 Leslie Road for a 30-bed women's therapeutic facility.
The B.C. Supreme Court dismissed the case.
Tore's wife, Geraldine Pettersen, also spoke in favour and wrote one of the four letters council received in support.
"I think a kennel, if operated as proposed, is a good fit for our neighbourhood with minimal impact on us."
She went through much of the complaints, noting dogs would sleep inside and would remain in dog-runs rather than moving freely on the property. She wasn't concerned about increased traffic either.
"I imagine most of the stays will be for a week or more while people are away on holidays," she said.
"People using the doggy daycare will be in the area. For them this will be a real service to have in the neighbourhood."
On Monday night, council also received a letter of support from Laura Jagodnik, who was a previous spokeswoman of area residents opposed to the Northern Supportive Recovery Centre for Women.
The city and the applicant already fielded questions in a February open house, soon after it started the rezoning process. The city completed first and second reading of the bylaws in March.
"The last time we looked at this some of the issues were around the aquifer and the transportation on the road outside," noted Coun. Garth Frizzell.
"We don't anticipate any traffic issues from this proposal. It used to be a school site in excess of 10 years ago," said Ian Wells, manager of planning and development. "The restrictions on the aquifer were based on a therapeutic community care facility which was going to use large volumes of water compared to the dog (kennel)."
But for Sevin, she's not ready to give up the last 15 years of calm since the school closed down.
"The residential area has turned back to a nice quiet area."
Noise was a common concern among the four letters opposed.
"To put a business in a residential area is wrong," wrote Alois Gasbichler by email.
Another, who advocated for the women's centre said it was a need in the city "but in my opinion a boarding kennel in a residential area is not."
"This is a quiet neighbourhood where noise carries and a group of dogs barking in the kennel will be like the fires of Gondor being lit to summon the neighbouring dogs to howl," wrote Peter Goudal, in reference to a scene from the Lord of the Rings.
-- with files from Mark Nielsen
