Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Natalie Marshall and Wayne Rivera won’t begin their exotic animals business in Sweet Home, but they won’t stop trying to get it up and running.
The Sweet Home Planning Commission denied a request for a home occupation permit to allow Marshall and Rivera to operate an exotic pets Internet business with a local education component. Marshall still has the option of asking the City Council’s permission to allow her to keep exotic pets at her home.
Marshall and Rivera own only one exotic animal, as defined under city ordinance, a wallaby that escaped last month and wandered downtown. Their other pets fall outside the city’s restrictions.
She told the commission that she thought her wallaby, which she has had in Sweet Home for two years, was not included in the exotic pets ordinance, which specifically prohibits kangaroos; but wallabies are members of the kangaroo family. Her wallaby, Jojo, now resides with a friend in Waterloo.
“We would like to start an educational business revolving around exotic animals,” Marshall told the commission. They planned to start small at their home off 12th Avenue, where they run an adult foster care facility for the developmentally disabled.
They hoped to raise coatamundis and kinkajous, South and Central American cousins of the raccoon, along with marmosets, which are small primates. Before expanding beyond those three animals, they would locate outside the city limits.
As a business, their home would continue to look like a home, Marshall said. They wouldn’t put any signs up, and there would be no traffic generated. The animals would be kept in a shop building.
To operate the business, Marshall will need to get a license from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which regulates the care and keeping of exotic animals.
A couple of neighbors, including Donna Swank and Bob and Mona Waibel, opposed the permit although they praised Marshall for her ideas, saying that it needs to be outside the city limits. Swank was concerned about animals getting loose, particularly reptiles and most especially snakes, that might end up in her yard and panic her.
With more animals, she was concerned about noise and the smell, she said.
Outside of reptiles, the “other animals, I think they’re neat,” Swank told the commission.
“They’ve gotten these animals without permission,” Swank said. If approved, “How many more will it be before anyone knows?”
“It does not belong in the city or a residential area,” she said of the proposed business.
Marshall told the commission that these animals wouldn’t be noisy, although all animals can and do make noise sometimes. She also disagreed that it would create an odor problem.
She planned on having breeding pairs of each of the three exotic animals that would be part of her business; and if the commission thought that was too many animals, she would be willing to part with the four cavies, a larger rodent related to the guinea pig, and her two tortoises, both of which are allowed under the existing ordinance.
Dr. Henry Wolthuis, a member of the Planning Commission, said that among the issues are the rights of people buying homes in residential zones. The zones have standards they expect will be followed.
This kind of use is at the extreme limit of uses outlined among conditional uses for high-density residential areas, Chairman Dick Meyers said. High-density residential permits professional offices but specifically bars veterinary offices.
“I’m afraid if I was a neighbor, I’d be leery of certain animals running around out there,” Commissioner Frank Javersak said. “This could cause problems later.”
“I have a hard time mixing exotic animals with the regular neighborhood,” Commissioner Mike Adams said.
The permit proposal did not give an upper limit on how many animals might be included, Commissioner Alan Culver said. A couple could become 20, 30 or 40.
Commissioner Greg Stephens said he agreed with the others and that “people with houses in a neighborhood have the right to be animal odor-free.”
Meyers said he’s always leaned toward letting people do what they like with their land as long as it doesn’t break any laws or bother anyone, but “I honestly need more detail before I say yes.”
The commission denied the permit 6-0. Commissioner Karen Billings was absent.
“We don’t want to be anywhere we’re not wanted, so we’ll be looking for property outside of the city limits to meet your needs,” Marshall said.