BY JANE MEGGITT
Staff Writer
The crowd overflowed the room and fanned out into the hallway last week, when Sharon Gaboff went before the Millstone Township Zoning Board.
Gaboff appeared at the board’s March 23 meeting for a hearing on her proposal to put a new veterinary clinic on her property at the intersection of Ely Harmony and Stagecoach roads.
To avoid violating fire code ordinances, Chairman William Kastning had to tell audience members to find seats or go into the hall, where they could hear the proceedings from a loudspeaker.
Gaboff and her husband, Alan, are seeking a conditional use variance for the veterinary clinic and continued use of their property for residence.
The township ordinance would allow a veterinary clinic as a conditional use, only if the land were used for agricultural purposes, such as tending to animals like sheep and goats.
The Gaboffs plan to build a 9,670-square-foot veterinary clinic and rehabilitation training center on their land. Bark Inn Buddies, as they plan to call it, would have an exercise pool, a grooming area and a training area. The facility would also include veterinary and surgical rooms, as it would be a full-service veterinary clinic.
The Gaboffs plan to operate the clinic six days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and to offer 24-hour emergency service. They are currently in negotiations with Dr. Lawrence Weiner, a local veterinarian who operates Town and Country Vet in Manalapan. Weiner said he would use the new clinic as a satellite facility.
Gaboff told the board that 24 years ago, she started the animal rescue and adoption program Adopt-A-Pet, which she continues to run.
“The purpose,” she said, “is to rescue animals in need, specializing in handicapped animals, and place them in permanent homes.”
Adopt-A-Pet is run with the help of approximately 12 volunteers, according to Gaboff. They began working in Howell, but Gaboff searched for property with a kennel where she could continue the program. She said she needed a decent house for her four children, as well as a kennel for her rescue dogs.
In 1993, the family found and moved into the Millstone property, buying it as a “handyman special.” She said the kennel, which had been there for 40 years, needed a lot of work and that they restored it as well as they could.
Gaboff said that the late zoning officer in town, Frank Como, told her that what she wanted to do was a permitted use, and he gave her his blessing.
Gaboff said the current building sits at the bottom of a hill and has been damaged by runoff. She called it “an eyesore,” saying that it sits too close to the road.
“I feel it is time to put something up that looks nice and is set back from the road, and [that] is up with the times,” she said.
Gaboff also runs a therapy dog program for nursing home residents and hospital patients, and she works with a 4-H program in Millstone and the Future Farmers of America at Allentown High School. She said students donate their time to her organization, and the state police have brought stray and injured animals to her, as she is a certified animal control officer. Gaboff holds fund-raisers to pay for animals’ veterinary bills.
She also provides boarding and grooming at her facility. Currently, she can board between 15 and 20 animals at a time, but the new veterinary facility, she said, would increase the boarding number by about 10 percent, as it will have 23 holding places. According to Gaboff, the new building would also refer emergencies to other practices on a 24-hour basis.
Gaboff said that unlike the present building, the new facility would have soundproofing and buffering.
When Gaboff’s attorney, William Mehr, asked her about the potential clientele, Gaboff said about 75 percent would be domestic animals and 25 percent would be agricultural animals, including sheep, goats, poultry and rabbits. She does not currently service horses, nor will she in the new facility.
She said that on average, the clinic will have between 8 and 10 animals in the new kennel area for veterinary treatment, with the remaining animals being rescues or boarders. Gaboff also said she would like to do low-cost spaying and neutering in the new clinic, as she has been an advocate of the procedures for both dogs and cats.
Board member George Gilbert asked if Gaboff had taken her case before the township’s agricultural board. Mehr said they had not, but that it was a good idea.
Gilbert mentioned that the training of sheep dogs might be considered an agricultural use.
Gaboff’s engineer, Lorelei Totten, said a detention basin will be placed where the current building now stands, estimating the size of the building to be about 1,000 square feet. The new building will be nearly 10,000 square feet.
Planner Thomas Thomas said the neighboring area was once zoned for nonresidential use. He said a bus repair and storage business and a landscaping business were near Gaboff’s property.
Thomas said Millstone had a definition of kennel in its ordinances, but no zoning for kennels in the township. He said veterinary clinics were among the conditional uses listed in the ordinances for the R-130 zone.
Thomas said agriculture has diminished substantially in Millstone. He said a property could have two principal uses — residential and commercial — and that this was usually the case with farms.
Thomas said the 6- to 10-acre zoning in Millstone would encourage hobby farms and small-animal agriculture, but that the days of large-animal agriculture other than equine were gone.
Alan Schectel, representing the township planner Coppola & Coppola, said the proposed facility sounded like an expansion of a nonconforming use. Thomas said the use would be more conforming if veterinary services were provided.
Weiner testified that over the years, he has worked on about 500 animals for Gaboff. He said there was not much commercial agriculture left in the area other than equine, and that most equine work was done on-site. He said he would be a leasee of the new facility and therefore had some input into the design. He cited the proposed therapy pool for animals planned for the site as “cutting edge.”
The board will continue its public hearing on the matter during its April 27 meeting.