Starke County Planning Commission Tables Dog Kennel Ordinance

The ordinance regulating dog kennels is slowly making progress to being approved, and it’s been sent back to the tech committee for further revision. Previously, a committee consisting of many dog owners collaborated on making a revision to the proposed ordinance that would differentiate between commercial and non-commercial kennels, but none of the members of the Planning Commission had a list of the people on that committee.

A five-to-six-person committee will be formed to further revise the proposed ordinance, and Commissioner Dan Bridegroom said that he feels the use of the word “commercial,” could cause problems down the line. He advised against using that language in the drafted ordinance.

The Board of Zoning Appeals has requested this ordinance because they feel a better defined ordinance would help with guidelines, and they been requesting an ordinance regulating these kennels for the last three years. Another catalyst for the creation of this ordinance is the fact that there are several houses with multiple dogs chained outside near the property of their neighbors, which causes problems, but there are no means to prevent this kind of behavior at this time.

In the end, the Planning Commission tabled the proposal. The tech committee assigned to drafting and revising this ordinance will meet on August 4th at 9:00 a.m., where it is expected they will confer with the Planning Commission and draft an ordinance that is not only acceptable to the public, but won’t cause problems down the line with the state.