The Hall County Planning Commission recommended approval Monday for a proposed dog day-care venue near Clermont.
Bark Camp Farm is requesting a special use for a 30-acre property on Hunter Road near the intersection of U.S. 129 and Jim Hood Road. Megan Partrick with Bark Camp Farm said the idea came from finding a lack of space near her Gainesville home to let her new dog play.
"She loves to run. She's a golden doodle and, needless to say, we don't have the space for her to do that where we live," Partrick said. "We have lots of friends and community members we've talked to who have the same problem. There's just not anywhere that's really wide open with lots of area for dogs to run, so we hope to be able to provide that for the community."
Partrick said the business, if approved, would run a shuttle service that would pick up dogs from any residents who used the service and drop them back off at the end of the day. She also said they would like to host occasional events for dog owners who use the service if business goes well.
Some residents spoke against the request at Monday's meeting, however. Hunter Road resident Michael Lane said he believes the road is too small for a business to operate on.
"Hunter Road is a single-lane dirt road," Lane said. "It is a dust bowl all summer long and it is a mud hole all winter long. We have school buses that run up and down Hunter Road and if you meet a school bus, you just about have to get in the ditch to let the school bus get by."
Partrick said she believed using a shuttle service with one trip in the morning and one in the afternoon rather than individual owners delivering and picking up their dogs would minimize the traffic impact on the road.
Planning commissioners unanimously recommended approval, but did add conditions to mitigate road impact, including restricting the hours the shuttle can run to try to avoid it conflicting with the school bus routes and limiting the number of events the site can host to one every three months.
Planning Commissioner Gina Pilcher said she supports the idea of the business and hopes the conditions will be enough to limit the impact to the surrounding residents.
"I think there is a need for that type of thing because there are a lot of dogs that need that day care. That's kind of an out-of-the-way place for it, so I think the conditions will handle the amount of in-and-out traffic there," Pilcher said.
The Hall County Commission will have the final decision on the request at their meeting on June 22.
