Los Gatos planning commissioners on Wednesday will review a draft ordinance that would let dog owners on large hillside properties keep their pets in with a buried electronic boundary rather than a tall fence, a change the town attorney says would fix a conflict between two parts of the town code.
The item is a public hearing at the Planning Commission meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 28, at the Town Council Chambers, 110 E. Main St. Whatever the commission decides goes to the Town Council as advice; the council has the final say.
The conflict
Los Gatos requires dogs to be on a leash of six feet or less or behind a fence at least six feet tall. Separate hillside rules ban solid fences and require perimeter fencing on lots of an acre or larger to be wildlife friendly: no higher than 42 inches, with an 18-inch gap beneath it.
Read together, the staff report says, those rules leave owners of those big hillside lots with no lawful way to enclose a dog at the property line. Town Attorney Gabrielle Whelan wrote that this "does not appear to have been a deliberate policy choice," since the leash rule predates the hillside fence standards.
What would change
A resident asked the town to recognize hidden underground electronic fences, and the council asked for a draft after an informational report in August. The ordinance would allow such a system, defined as a buried wire and transmitter that signals a collar on the dog and is installed by an authorized contractor, only on hillside lots of at least an acre.
It could not be used for a dog the town has declared potentially dangerous, which state law says needs a physical enclosure.