Today is the day we learn whether – or how much of – our permit application will be approved by the City of Kirkland.
This has already been a harrowing process, leaving us feeling at times like we’re playing pinball, but we’re the pinballs being bounced around for someone’s amusement; at other times we seem to be playing pin the tail on the donkey, and the donkey keeps kicking; or it could be musical chairs, and we’re really not sure whether, after all this dizzying and exhausting running around, there will be a place to settle.
Two weeks ago, we submitted our application to install a laundry area, a 6′ high fence around the dog play area and a rain garden to filter the storm runoff to the neighboring “wetland” (populated by old tires and rusty something or other). We have reduced our outdoor dog play area to accommodate the 10′ setback requirements (our neighbor is a pipe warehouse); we’ve upgraded our interior fencing gates to be wheelchair accessible. We think we’ve answered every concern the City could possibly have, but we’re simple businesswomen, not contractors. We’ve never experienced the maze that is the Planning Dept/Dept of Public Works/and … who else? It seemed they had a neverending supply of hoops for us to jump through. Today we find out if there are any more.
My fear is that the eight parking spaces we have will be deemed inadequate. (Although that would be unreasonable, as we will have more parking spaces here than most if not all other Doggy Daycares in King County.) But we are located on a major thoroughfare, so there is no on-street parking. We’ve paid for people to sit for four hours, over two days, and count the traffic at a comparable doggy daycare, and then to sit in our neighbor’s parking lot for four hours, over two days and count traffic in their parking lot. And we’re now paying the City’s Traffic Engineer to generate an analysis of the data. And if he feels we must have more parking spaces, we’re delayed again while we redesign our rain garden to accommodate whatever number he comes up with, reducing even further our dog play space. Oh, the anxiety!
Please, Fates, help them to find in our favor. We’ve been good girls. We’ve tried so hard to be nice, to be accommodating. And to all you readers out there, please wish us luck.