Boone County Animal Care hopes to expand with land proposal
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The ball is in the Columbia City Council's court to respond to the nonprofit Boone County Animal Care after it requested land to build an animal care facility from the city during a scheduled public comment on Monday.
An entirely foster-based organization, Boone County Animal Care hopes to use the land create a large, no-kill animal care shelter with offices, a fenced-in yard and veterinary services.
The 47 acres of land at the 800 block of Strawn Road was donated to the City of Columbia in 2017 by Larry Potterfield, founder of Midway USA. City staff initially planned for the property to have a new Central Missouri Humane Society building, fire station, and dog park.
However, CMHS ended up deciding against the property with spokesperson Michelle Casey saying the group had concerns about dirt work on the property and a want to be in a more centralized location. The Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission ended up approving a new plat of land for CMHS at 1003 East Brown School Road in June.
Boone County Animal Care was founded in 2012, focuses on cat care and provides foster services, adoption, and free spay and neuter surgeries. According to founder Jennifer Romesburg, the group has been able to help more than 500 cats a year. Romesburg hopes that since the city agreed to a shelter in 2018, they may agree to another.
"With the growing population, so comes in more animals, and with the costs of everything, people may not be able to afford to keep their pets," Romesburg said.
If able to purchase the land, Romesburg hopes to expand services to dogs. Romesburg also hopes to partner with Boone County Animal Control and share spaces with them inside the building. The planned facility will also feature less "stereotypical" shelter spaces with the shelter areas planned to have fewer cages and resemble a home setting.
"Them [animals] coming into that is the most stressful situation you can probably put an animal in, so the new shelter would be very much more home-based," Romesburg said
Romesburg has not yet heard back from the city and plans to follow up by the end of the week.
Ward 5 Councilman Don Waterman said that general comments like the land request need proper input from city staff before City Council consideration.
