Some residents unhappy with animal shelter’s move,

construction slated to begin in late 2009 or 2010

by Melissa J. Brachfeld | Staff Writer

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Some Derwood residents say they do not support the county animal shelter’s plans to relocate its facility from Rockville to Laytonia Park in Derwood.

The County Council recently allocated about $6 million to continue work on the project.

Council President Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown added that the county’s capital program provides $18.7 million in total funding. The council is hoping for $2 million in private donations.

Construction is slated to begin at the end of 2009 or early 2010, said J.C. Crist, president of the Montgomery County Humane Society.

But residents near the site where the shelter will be built say it is not appropriate for a shelter.

‘‘There’s nothing wrong with building an animal shelter,” said Pat Labuda, president of the Greater Shady Grove Civic Alliance. ‘‘It’s the location that we have a problem with.”

Crist said the new shelter would replace the ‘‘antiquated” 15,737-square-foot shelter located on Rothgeb Drive in Rockville.

‘‘The building is beyond its life cycle and deteriorating,” he said.

The facility has a variety of problems, ranging from inadequate ventilation to a leaky roof, he said. It is so overcrowded that an overflow shelter had to be set up on South Stonestreet Avenue in Rockville, he added.

Crist said the need for a new shelter arose in 2000, but studies had revealed that the shelter’s site was too small and could not be renovated in a cost-effective way. The county decided to build a new one elsewhere.

According to a memorandum to the County Council, the shelter will be about 45,000 square feet with a footprint of 29,000 square feet near the corner of Muncaster Mill and Airpark roads. It will be two stories tall.

Labuda said she wrote a letter to the County Council on behalf of the Greater Shady Grove Civic Alliance in early May, requesting that the council remove funding for the new shelter from its Fiscal Year 2009-2014 Capital Improvements Program budget.

In it, she wrote that several years ago the Derwood community was presented with a plan for Laytonia Park, which included a library. It was later decided to locate the library closer to the Shady Grove Metro station, which she said would be acceptable to the community so long as it were substituted with ball fields, picnic areas, wooded areas or other ‘‘compatible” uses.

‘‘Using this property as an animal shelter is doubly insulting to the neighboring community,” Labuda wrote, adding Derwood already is overburdened with traffic, the County Service Park and will soon be getting the Intercounty Connector and ‘‘dense” housing around the Shady Grove Metro station.

‘‘Please do not add barking dogs to our already excessive noise levels and additional traffic to increase the noise and air pollution that already exist in Derwood from all the truck traffic,” she wrote in the letter. ‘‘An additional 6,000 housing units are planned to be built in the Derwood area. A dog shelter does not serve these future or current residents.”

Pat Mooney, who lives a quarter-mile away in Mill Creek Towne, wrote in an e-mail message to The Gazette that he submitted a similar letter to the council.

In it, he wrote that the project is unnecessary given the county’s financial ‘‘shortfall” and that it ‘‘slipped in under the radar” as a replacement for the library.

‘‘Secondly, there has been no (or very limited) community involvement in the planning and placement for this facility,” he wrote. ‘‘No meetings in Mill Creek Towne that I am aware of in the last two years. That is not a sound way for the county to operate in my judgment.”

He said he also feels the shelter could be placed at another site.

‘‘It seems to me that there are many, many places in Montgomery County where the shelter could be placed and not have an impact on a residential neighborhood,” Mooney wrote.

Crist said he was not aware of any community opposition, adding an outreach meeting was held two years and only one family attended.

‘‘If that’s the case, we’d love to talk to them and see what their concerns are because we don’t want anyone to be unhappy,” he said.

The shelter, Crist said, will create a ‘‘very small footprint” on the 4-acre site. He said ball fields and picnic areas will be built around it.

‘‘The goal is to make the shelter something the community can be proud of,” he said.

Mooney said he has not contacted the humane society about his concerns.

In an e-mail response to Mooney on May 29, Knapp wrote that he understands many Derwood residents are upset about the Intercounty Connector and other county facilities in the area, but hoped Mooney would consider the animal shelter in a ‘‘different light.”

‘‘The county is planning a building that will incorporate best practices in both animal sheltering and in green buildings,” he writes. ‘‘The building will be attractive, the footprint has been reduced, and sound is not a problem (just as it is not a problem at the current shelter).”

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