SAN CLEMENTE : New Home Found for Animal Shelter

Beating a looming deadline, city officials have found a new home for the San Clemente Animal Shelter, which is being moved so that critical repairs can be made to a storm-damaged hillside behind the city sewer and water treatment plant.

City officials signed a lease last week for a 9,177-square-foot warehouse at 224 Calle Pintoresco in the Rancho San Clemente Business Park, Fire Chief Gene Begnell said.

Rent on the building, a former window and door manufacturing plant, is $5,500 a month. Officials expect to be there for six months.

Shelter volunteers will move the cats, dogs and other animals to the temporary shelter in early October.

City crews are rushing to start the needed repair work to the hillside before the coming rainy season.

In signing the lease, the city had to make several promises about the way the shelter will be operated to ease concerns of neighboring businesses, Begnell said. Among the conditions:

* Shelter workers won’t exercise the animals on the street.

* There won’t be any outdoor kennels, and all operations will be kept inside the building. City trucks will pull inside the building and close a garage door before transferring animals to cages.

* Visitors must park on the street.

In the meantime, Begnell said, the city will continue negotiations for a possible permanent site in an industrial section of town near Richard Steed Park or will rebuild a shelter on Avenida Pico. The existing shelter on Avenida Pico will be destroyed during the project.

The temporary relocation will cost the city about $33,000 in rent and $5,000 in building improvements, although about 94% of those costs could be reimbursed through federal and state emergency funds, Begnell said.