Last week, the dog run behind the SPCA Ouest de l’Ile was shuttered – shut down by city workers who said the organization was skirting a municipal bylaw that prohibits high fences in front yards.
The move was counter-intuitive; the group’s dog run is actually behind the building’s front entrance.
The problem, Vaudreuil-Dorion Mayor Guy Pilon explained, is that the city considers the SPCA to have two front yards because it owns frontage on two separate streets.
The SPCA’s address is actually listed on Boulevard-Cité des-Jeunes but the property in the rear lies on Montée Labossière.
Under municipal bylaws, the fence there is too high to be by the street.
“By our bylaws, you cannot build certain things on the front,” he said.
Pilon said the city and the SPCA have come to some sort of arrangement: either by moving the dog park, changing it or by simply having the city reclassify the property somehow.
However, he stressed the organization would have to apply for a construction permit with Vaudreuil-Dorion.
By the end of the day Tuesday, a GoFundMe site had already raised almost $3,000 for the cost of the improvements.