McCandless proposes pet ordinance that bans using homes for kennel, rescue shelter

A new law being considered by McCandless council would ban residents from using their homes as animal kennels or rescue centers, but sets no specific limit on the number of pets they can have on their properties.

The town already has a law to deal with pets that are mistreated by their owners or are a nuisance to neighbors because they are allowed to run free, defecate on other people’s properties or bark incessantly.

But the town’s current zoning regulations don’t prevent residents from turning their homes into a kennel or animal rescue facility.

The proposed ordinance was discussed during a required public hearing during council’s Sept. 14 meeting.

If approved, the new ordinance would limit those uses to the town’s “C3” highway commercial districts, which are primarily located along Perry Highway and the town’s Wexford Flats section, as well as several other sites scattered around the municipality, according to planning director RJ Susko.

To provide town staff with guidelines on how to enforce the new regulations, the ordinance relies on the legal term “customary and incidental,” which solicitor Gavin Robb described as “what a reasonable person would consider an acceptable number of pets.”

“It allows the zoning officer to look at the totality of the circumstances because it’s so difficult to do a one-size-fits-all based on different neighborhoods, different property sizes and different types of animals,” he said.

Setting a specific number for the pets allowed also poses an enforcement challenge because “how do you go in and check that (number)?” he said.

Robb said members of the planning commission and the subcommittee working to draft the ordinance tried to set a number, but “it always seemed arbitrary because there were so many different factors.”

To support using the customary and incidental concept, Robb cited a 2009 Commonwealth Court case involving a person who had 17 Siberian Huskies in their home.

“The court said a reasonable person knows that keeping that many animals is not customary and incidental to a residential dwelling,” he said, noting that the court determined that the property owner “changed the use of the dwelling based on the number of animals they were keeping.”

Steve Scheidler of Park Edge Drive, who served on the subcommittee, said while he supports the final draft of the measure, he would have preferred it contained a limit on the number of pets people can have.

He said one way the town could determine how many dogs are in a home is to create an overlay map that uses dog license date that can be obtained from Allegheny County, which requires all dogs to be licensed.

Susko said a definition for fostering pets also was added to the ordinance.

“We wanted to make it clear that we weren’t trying to put any limits on the normal, customary way that people may foster an animal to see if it’s a good fit for their home, or someone taking care of one dog for a few months until it gets a permanent place somewhere else,” she said.

“Having a getting to know period with a pet is very different than an actual kennel or larger scale rescue,” and will be allowed under the new ordinance.

A date has not been set for when council will vote on whether to approve the household pet regulations.

The pet ordinance does not cover residents who want to raise chickens on their properties.

A public hearing on a proposed chicken ordinance has been scheduled for Sept. 28.