Planning Commission faced with feline frenzy over zoning variance

Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2000 | 10:18 a.m.

The Clark County Planning Commission hosted a cat fight Tuesday night.

The commission heard a request for four variances that would allow a group to maintain a cat sanctuary at the corner of Hinson Street and Roark Avenue in Sloan.

Debate on the issue pitted cat lovers against neighbors in the residential area off Interstate 15 just south of the Las Vegas Valley.

The cat sanctuary now holds 300 to 500 cats, said Sylvia Lyss, a cat lover and applicant for the variances. She applied for permission to keep a cat kennel where it is not permitted by zoning, to permit temporary structures -- three construction trailers and a caretaker residence -- where they are not allowed, and for a waiver of requirements for a decorative wall along her rear property line.

Although her property is about 4 acres in a rural open land zone, the cats are behind a fence on about 1 acre. Lyss said perhaps 40 cats -- most of the cats in the sanctuary are feral, she said -- escaped the fenced enclosure during heavy flooding in July.

The area holding the cats is surrounded by an 8-foot, electrified fence, but neighbors said the felines still manage to escape and move through the residential area.

Lyss and a handful of supporters argued that the group taking care of the cats -- For the Love of Cats and Kittens -- provides an important public service by spaying or neutering animals that otherwise would be on the streets producing more kittens.

But Lyss didn't convince her neighbors.

Steve Caruso told the commissioners that when he walks out his back door, he smells cats. And what cats put in a litter box.

"I love animals ... but I take care of my yard for me, not for animals," Caruso said.

Bobbi Klocker helps keep about 85 cats in a smaller enclosed area within the larger enclosure. Klocker said her main concern is that the hundreds of cats at the site will have to be destroyed.

Lyss, however, vowed before the public hearing on the variances that nothing would happen to the cats. She promised "a barrage of public opinion" if the county's animal control office or anybody else tried to take the cats away.

"It won't be easy to try and take our animals," she said.

Animal control, in a statement read into the record, said the sanctuary should limit the number of cats to 100, maintain health records for all of the animals, put concrete down at the site to facilitate clean up, and post a 24-hour emergency contact number.

Pointing out that several of animal control's recommendations, such as reducing the number of animals, couldn't be done overnight, Kirby Trumbo, the Planning Commission chairman, offered a compromise. He suggested holding the issue for a month or so to give the sanctuary time to reduce the number of cats and to try to resolve issues with the neighbors.

Planning Commission member Will Watson moved that the issue be held until April 4. The commission unanimously approved the motion.

However, the problems might not be that easy to resolve. Lyss pointed out that since most of the cats in the enclosure are feral, they can't be caught. Nor is there anywhere to take the cats.

Lyss said her group will try to find money to put up a better wall around the enclosure to block the view of the construction trailers and keep the cats penned in, but she didn't know where the money will come from. She also said a new trash bin is controlling the cats' odor.

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