Therapist may lose shop

Deirdre Newman

The owner of a company that helps dogs recover from injuries hopes

the city will allow her to stay in her current digs.

Lillian Metteer, the owner of Canine Therapeutics, will ask the

Planning Commission Monday for an operating permit. She has been

running her business since May in an industrial park at 3303 Harbor

Boulevard without a permit because of a misunderstanding with the

leasing agent.

But planning staff members recommend the commission deny the

permit because they don’t believe it’s compatible with the other uses

of the industrial park. The commission recently denied a permit for a

chiropractor in the park who was in the same situation, but allowed

him to stay until the end of his lease, Planning Commission Chairman

Bruce Garlich.

“We denied the use so we didn’t establish a precedent,” Garlich

said.

“I would be surprised if we did anything more harsh than we did

with the chiropractor’s office. That’s my personal view.”

Canine Therapeutics offers therapeutic exercise, soft tissue

massage and hydrotherapy for dogs who are recovering from surgery or

injuries. One of her tools is an underwater treadmill that reduces

the impact of gravity by 65%.

“[The therapy] maximizes the dogs’ surgical outcome and also can

provide an alternative, if surgery is not an option due to age or

medical status,” Metteer said.

The leasing agent told her the space was zoned for general use,

Metteer said. But after she signed the lease in May, she went down to

City Hall to get a permit and learned otherwise.

With a maximum of two clients per hour, Metteer said she doesn’t

see as many clients on a daily basis as the chiropractor and that she

is in compliance with the number of parking spaces she has per square

foot of her space.

In the city’s 2000 general plan, the “industrial park” designation

was intended to apply to large districts that house a variety of

industrial uses and compatible office and commercial uses that don’t

generate a high and frequent level of customer traffic.

Planning staff members say Canine Therapeutics does not contain

any elements that would be more disruptive to neighbors than a pet

store, dog groomer or veterinarian, all of which can be found in

commercial zones. They also say if the commission were to allow the

company to stay, the effects on the surrounding industrial uses would

probably not be as adverse as a chiropractic office because of the

small size of the space. And because the building is a concrete block

construction and the use is entirely indoors, no noise impacts are

expected, staff members say.

Yet, they still recommend denying the permit because it is not

compatible with the other uses on the property.

Metteer said she wants to stay because the facility is centrally

located and highly accessible to her clients.

“It worked out great for the majority of cases because they are

pretty much in the Orange County area,” she said.

She hopes the commission will let her stay for the duration of her

lease, which is until the spring of 2005, and grant her a one-year

extension, since she said it would take about three years to recover

her costs.

* DEIRDRE NEWMAN covers Costa Mesa. She may be reached at (949)

574-4221 or by e-mail at deirdre.newman@latimes.com.