County Commissioners Consider Regulating Animal Rescues, Sanctuaries, Commercial Breeders

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

Residents attending a Levy County Commission workshop Tuesday generally agreed that animal rescues, when properly operated, are an asset to Levy County, but they encouraged the board to strike a balance between eliminating hoarders and finding sensible ways to preserve the legitimate rescue organizations that perform essential services.

Commissioners gave Planning and Zoning Director Stacey Hectus the benefit of their suggestions during the workshop without hammering down on specific rules and regulations they think should be enacted. Hectus is expected to return with options for the board to consider at a future meeting, possibly a workshop, regarding the fate of rescues and sanctuaries.

The county currently has no land use regulations on the books spelling out how rescues and sanctuaries must operate, where they can be located, how much land is needed for a rescue, or what the rescues can and can’t do, such as creating problems for their neighbors with obnoxious odors and smells, or in the case of dogs specifically, barking and whining of the animals.

It was apparent from audience comments that representatives of the bona fide rescues want the county to take a measured approach to enact regulations and avoid creating such draconian rules that even the legitimate rescues would have problems surviving, which would create even more problems for the board and Levy County Animal Services.

Commissioners indicated they weren’t interested in turning over all their power to staff to examine issues involving rescues. They seemed to be leaning toward requiring rescues to fill out some type of application that would come to the board explaining how and where they would operate, how many animals they adopt out, or if they operate within their own home as a foster organization, and if they are strictly voluntary or for profit.

As it stands now, the county officially knows of only four rescues that have turned in their paperwork as 501(c)(3) nonprofits to Levy County Animal Services, but one woman said there are at least 5-10 rescues in Levy County that are recognized as 501(c)(3) charities. She thinks they can be found on the state government internet site Sun Biz. Apparently, there are other independent rescues that operate out of their homes or yards without any type of permit. Some of these rescues may be legitimate, but the county has no record that they even exist in many cases, much less know how they operate.

The county commission held the workshop to hear what the public had to say about rescues and it appeared they learned a lot from the comments, but since the meeting was a workshop, they could not make an official decision about rescues.

Be Careful with Regulations

One of the final speakers, Albert Rese, a respected volunteer who works with an organization called, Fix Them All, spoke to the commission about the need for rescues in Levy County, and for organizations like the one he works with that provide low-cost spay and neuter services. He said Fix Them All has probably spayed and neutered a thousand animals.

“If these thousand animals were not spayed or neutered, how many animals would there have been?” he said.

Rese said Fix Them All works with a lot of rescues in Levy County. He said he read a story online Tuesday, which he wasn’t sure was factual, indicating the county was thinking about requiring rescues to have at least 5 to 20 acres of land.

“If that were to happen, most of the rescues in Levy County would no longer exist and you have no idea – or maybe you do – what a burden that would be on the county if all those rescues suddenly disappeared because we would have more abused dogs and strays than you could think of,” he said.

Rese said he would prefer to work out the issues in another workshop. He said one of the things that were mentioned at the workshop was requiring waste removal. He said that would eliminate one of the problems. He received loud applause for his comments on the importance of rescues in Levy County and the need for another workshop to discuss the implementation of practical and common-sense solutions.

Striking a Balance

Cheri Jenkins, a realtor, and member of Williston Animal Group (WAG), a respected rescue group that also operates a shelter in Williston, said WAG also deals with a lot of rescues that are currently in the zoning categories of Agriculture-Rural Residential or Forestry Rural Residential and probably Rural Residential in Levy County. She said they serve an essential purpose in the county.

Hectus arrived at the workshop with some general suggestions for the board to consider including requiring conditional use permits in F-RR or A-RR zones for animal rescues or sanctuaries, animal breeding, canine clubs, private dog parks, and animal daycare. She tossed out the idea of prohibiting rescues in residential districts, requiring a minimum acreage for rescues, housing animals in enclosed buildings, limiting animal density, requiring waste disposal, and establishing setbacks and hours of operations. She put a question mark behind all her proposals to indicate she was asking commissioners if that’s what they wanted.

Jenkins said she understands the county’s side of the issue, but also the rescue side.

Hoarding vs. Rescues

“We understand both sides of the issue. We know you have no way in the code of determining who is hoarding animals and who has a rescue,” she said. “Just because someone gets a bunch of cats or a bunch of dogs and says, well, I’m a rescue – they might actually be in a hoarding situation and you guys have no way of determining that. We understand there is a critical need for understanding that. There is also a critical need for the county to be able to have legitimate rescues in people’s homes. In a way, that works for everybody to keep the neighbors happy. If you went through and shut down everybody that is doing this, animal services would be so overwhelmed. They already are, and this would create a catastrophe. We definitely need to distinguish between the good and the bad.”

She said another thing the county needs to consider, which complicates things, is distinguishing between the types of animals when establishing how many cats and dogs are allowed on a piece of property for each rescue and shelter.

“You can have five dogs and they will make a lot more noise than 100 cats. You have to start thinking about that when you’re getting into shelters. Horses require more acres,” she said. “When you start figuring out allowances for shelters, how much land is it going to take for a certain shelter and talk about the differences and the needs of those. That is my position. Understand both sides of it. Definitely there’s a need for some type of control. We don’t need to be the wild west out there or there’s going to be some really bad situations, but the county’s got to have a relief valve for animal services because they can’t keep up with it.”

Living Next Door to Rescue

Rick Emmons of Chiefland said some animal rescues are grandfathered in, or they think they are grandfathered in. They have limited funds and they have limited acreage for the operation and it can get messy.

“I happen to live next to one. It’s been going on for three years now and it’s a total mess. It smells and everything that goes along with it,” Emmons said. “I have three properties around this particular rescue. One of those properties is a rental. I can’t raise the rent. My tenants aren’t happy. I actually agree with what they are doing. That’s why we are all here. We have to find a balance where we all can live together.”

Separate Breeder Rules

Resident Diane Garte said she thinks people who breed pets for profit should fall under a different category than rescues. She spoke about commercial operators who breed and sell dogs.

“I think that’s where you see more corners cut. Actually the breeding of dogs is kind of what leads to needing shelters,” she said, drawing applause.