Council: Building will be an animal shelter
Conversion may be completed in about two years
Instead of driving 20-something miles out of town to the city’s animal shelter and adoption center, residents will soon be able to just make a quick drive downtown.
That’s because the Porterville City Council agreed Tuesday to allow the city’s animal shelter to relocate from its existing location in Lindsay to a building at 185 N. D St. in Porterville which he city recently purchased.
City Manager John Lollis said converting the building to an animal shelter may take about two years to complete.
The building is approximately 9,677 square feet, and the parcel is approximately 31,800 square feet, or 0.73 acres, which Porterville Police Chief Eric Kroutil said is definitely enough space and is in a much better location that will be convenient for everyone.
“Our current animal shelter is over 20 miles away, it is very old, it is falling apart and it is in need of some extensive repairs if we stay there for an extended period of time,” Kroutil said, adding that the department would use the shelter for at least 20 years, if not more. “This is not something that we would grow out of in five or 10 years.”
Kroutil said the new location may also encourage more people in the community to volunteer, an idea he has seen in action in Kern County.
“I am certainly not making this a promise by any means, but when we visited Kern County, they had their’s [animal shelter and adoption center] somewhat on the outskirts and had about three or four volunteers and when they moved it in town to a much more accessible area, they went up to 150 volunteers,” Kroutil said. “Now, I am not saying that we would get that amount, but I can definitely say that I think the number of volunteers that we would have would increase by moving it into town.”
Vice Mayor Brian Ward said using the building for an animal shelter with an adoption center is definitely a good idea.
“My thing is that the shelter is the most pressing thing and the one we can get done the quickest,” Ward said.
Ward said there have been plans to potentially develop an animal shelter on land near the city’s corporation yard, but noted that Richard Tree, manager of the city’s transit center, may be able to use that for transit offices.
“To me that would be a win, win,” Ward said.
Maritza Altamirano, a commissioner on the city’s animal control commission, said she is really excited that the animal shelter and adoption center will finally be in the city.
“I am elated,” she said. “It is about time that something like this would come to Porterville.”
Altamirano, who has been involved with the animal control commission since last September, said relocating the animal shelter in the city was always a goal and the fact that it is going to happen is “great news.”
“We are trying to make the effort of having more animals adopted so this gives it a higher push and now more people will be more informed within the city,” Altamirano said, adding that the animal shelter and adoption center will, “Make the community much more open and much more lively.”
Jenni Byers, the city’s community development director, said in a staff report that the current layout of the building works well with the unique needs of an animal shelter with adoption center in that there is an existing division of the building with a vestibule separating what could be the shelter and veterinary treatment area from the offices and adoption center.
Necessary modifications, Byers said, would include ventilation and drainage in the shelter portion of the building.
Byers added that any use of the building by the city also requires a modification from the current General Plan land use designation and zoning of Downtown Retail, D Street Corridor (DR-D) to Public/institutional (DPS).
However, there was about a half-hour debate before the council came to an agreement to use the building as an animal shelter.
During the debate, council members went back and forth between the possibility of the building also being used for a community center and offices for Porterville Transit.
Although additional activities in the community is always something of interest, the idea of using the building as a community center was rejected first primarily because the layout of the building, particularly given that it is segmented off by a vestibule, limits options for its use, Byers said.
Byers said council also decided against a community center because the height of the ceilings in the building limit opportunities for some common community center uses such as sports activities. She added that, based on the square footage of the building, there also isn’t enough parking for a community center to be established there.
As far as using the building for offices for Porterville Transit, Byers said the biggest drawback with that is that the building “greatly exceeds the space needed for offices at this time,” she said.
“The building is way too big for them,” added council member Cameron Hamilton.
However, Tree disagreed.
“We have big plans for the transit and we are always looking for more room for our operation,” Tree said, adding that the proximity of the building to the transit center is “particularly of interest to us.”
Unfortunately, utilizing the building for offices for Porterville Transit wasn’t particularly of interest to the council.
In addition to conducting a public hearing to receive input regarding the proposed general plan amendment and zone change, the council also adopted a draft resolution that approved the general plan amendment and approved a draft ordinance for a change in zoning from DR-D (Downtown Retail D-street Corridor) to Public Semi-public.
Additionally, the council gave first reading and ordered the ordinance to print and authorized staff to look at renegotiating existing lease agreements of two small business offices that currently occupy the southernmost portion of the building to six months at a time.