Residents in north Forsyth may soon be able to bring their dogs to a new training facility.
The Forsyth County planning board approved a request from Tutterrow Enterprises LLC for a conditional use permit to operate Sit Means Sit, a dog training business located at 2515 Hurt Bridge Road.
As proposed, the facility will be in an existing 4,050-square-foot building on the 1.5-acre property with 14 parking spaces. The property is zoned as highway business district.
Planning and community development staff issued a non-supportive report for the request, which centered on noise concerns from dogs being outside.
Christopher Light, an attorney with Lipscomb, Johnson, Sleister, Dailey & Smith LLC who is representing the business owners, said those concerns have been mitigated with numerous noise-blocking methods.
The only time dogs will be outside, Light said, will be to go to the restroom. They will be taken into separated dog runs and will not be taken out in groups.
This is not a boarding facility, he said. Pet owners drop off their dogs for two weeks to be trained. They cannot leave their dogs at the business to go on vacation, for example.
Noise abatement materials will also be installed inside, and a privacy fence will surround the property.
Neighbors who spoke in favor of the proposal at a public hearing on June 28 said they were not “crazy about it,” but that the business owner has worked with them to appease their concerns about noise.
Rusty Whitlow, planning representative for District 1, in which this request sits, said he wanted to make sure lighting fixtures on the property pointed away from the neighboring subdivision.
One neighbor spoke against the request, saying he was concerned about the contagion factor in pets from his neighborhood and the training facility barking at each other.
The request was approved 4-0, with Chairwoman Jayne Iglesias, representative for District 2, absent.
The planning board is a recommending body for the Board of Commissioners, which is scheduled to hear this request at a July 21 public hearing.