The potential opening of a new pet business in Covington’s Old Seminary Square subdivision has led to a series of legal battles between the city, Covington’s Board of Architectural Review and Development and SKLO Acquisitions, an LLC based out of Cincinnati.
The lawsuits escalated to the federal level in March, and the disputes have prompted revisions to Covington’s Neighborhood Development Code.
The conflict centers around a property at the intersection of Russell Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Covington’s Old Seminary Square neighborhood, a mixed-use district populated with historic houses.
SKLO wants to establish a new branch of Erlanger pet business Allie’s Walkabout on the site, which was previously used as a telecom substation. Hermes Construction contracted with SKLO to refurbish the building for Allie’s, who would lease the facility from the developer.
David Clegg, one of Allie’s co-owners, said in a phone call that the facility would include indoor dog daycare, pet photography, grooming and some overnight boarding. However, he said that overnight services would be limited. He estimated that the facility could house between 100 and 110 dogs at one time.
After SKLO acquired the property, it sought a zoning amendment from the Kenton County Planning Commission in October 2022, requesting a reclassification of the land plot from a mixed-used zone to a light industrial zone, believing that zoning would be more appropriate for Allie’s Walkabout’s business, legally classified as a kennel.
The commission voted down the amendment, saying that the property’s original traditional urban mixed-use, or TUMU, zoning already allowed for kennels. As a result, SKLO applied for a permit from the city in November under the original zoning plan.
Court documents show that Covington Zoning Administrator Dalton Belcher denied SKLO’s permit request in December, writing that Covington’s Neighborhood Development Code did not permit the construction and operation of kennels in a traditional urban mixed use zone.
Emily Couch, SKLO’s attorney, took issue with this reasoning in a letter from later in December. She argued that Allie’s Walkabout’s facility fell under the neighborhood code’s definition of service-oriented retail, which is allowed in a TUMU district.
The developers then appealed to Covington’s Board of Architectural Review and Development, which consists of mayor-appointed members tasked with resolving zoning requests and disputes. The board held a public hearing on Jan. 17, where attorneys from both sides of the argument and members of the public spoke on the issue.
LINK nky requested transcripts from the hearing with a public records request, but the city had not yet furnished the documents by the time of this story’s publication.
Ultimately, the board granted SKLO’s appeal after several hours of deliberations.
Displeased with this decision, the city sued its own board to appeal the ruling. This escalated the case to the Kenton County Circuit Court.
Meanwhile, SKLO sued The City of Covington as well as the city solicitor, David Davidson, and Dalton Belcher in federal court for a temporary injunction, which would prevent any further action on the part of the city if granted. This new suit alleged that Covington’s actions had done irreparable damage to SKLO’s rights. David Bunning, the federal district judge who adjudicated the developer’s request, denied the injunction request on March 23 and stayed the matter until the county court could rule on it.
Kenton County Circuit Court Judge Patricia Summe considered the case in April. She “dismissed the case with prejudice” on April 7, arguing that the city had failed to show how SKLO had injured them, a requirement for plaintiffs in Kentucky civil court cases.
Covington had begun the process of appealing Summe’s decision by the end of the month, a process that is still ongoing.
Welcome to the neighborhood
The conflict between the city and the developer proceeds from differing interpretations of Covington’s neighborhood development ordinances, which were adopted in 2020.
Seminary Square, the subdivision where the building would be located, is zoned for traditional urban mixed-use, which the city’s development code defines as “historic main streets of Covington’s in-town neighborhoods. Priority is placed on optimizing the physical characteristics of the built environment for increased walkability and a vibrant center building upon the historic character of Covington’s neighborhood main streets. This district supports the small-scale fine-grained character of the historic neighborhoods with a mix of attached and detached mixed-use buildings on small lots.”
Much of Main Street, for instance, falls within a TUMU zone.
The code defines a kennel as a place where four or more dogs are kept, including animal shelters. As of 2020, the code’s language indicating where kennels can be built in town is inconsistent.
In the subsection describing land uses for TUMU districts, kennels are listed in a table under the “Agriculture and Animal Service” category of land use and flagged as not allowed, signified by two hyphens placed next to each other.
Later on in the same table, however, TUMU districts allow for conditional use of “All Service-Oriented Uses,” signified with with a capital letter L. Conditional use means that identified businesses are allowed under certain conditions, usually if the building meets certain design parameters.
What are “all service-oriented uses”? The code defines them as non-medical services needed on a recurring basis, and it lists some examples: barbershops, nail salons, laundromats, courier services, animal grooming and, finally, kennels among others.
SKLO’s argument contends that Allie’s Walkabout provides services first and foremost.
Clegg agrees.
“At the end of the day, we’re a service business,” Clegg said on the phone. “And we’re trying to bring this service to the residents of Covington.”
Moreover, it’s a service that many in Covington would benefit from, he said.
“If you ever spend a Saturday morning getting a cup of coffee in Covington, there are dogs everywhere,” he said. “And so I know it’s a service that’s needed and would be welcomed by a great number.”
SKLO’s court complaints draw attention to the peculiar situation of a city suing one of its own appointed boards.
“Covington is suing itself and its public officials, the members of Covington’s BOARD, for doing the job they were appointed to do,” one brief reads. “In the process, Covington turns both due process and common sense on its head.”
The city, on the other hand, disagrees with this characterization, claiming that it has a right to sue the architectural board like any legal entity. In the city’s legal briefs, the board’s decision is characterized as “erroneous” and “arbitrary.”
“Two things are at stake here,” reads a recent statement from the city. “Precedent and the ability of a local government to write and interpret its own land-use regulations. Covington’s new Neighborhood Development Code does not allow kennels in these mixed-use zones, where there would be no buffer between dozens to hundreds of dogs and people’s homes. If we’re forced to allow kennels at this location, would we then have to allow them in every such ‘zone?’ That result would be catastrophic to residents. Furthermore, if a local elected body can’t write its own regulations, then who gets to?”
In addition, a contingent of Seminary Square residents have been fighting the development since it first appeared before the planning commission in October.
At a commission meeting on April 25, one resident, Robert McGrane, encouraged the commission to appeal the circuit court’s decision, expressing a desire to “keep the ambiance of Old Seminary Square.”
“This isn’t about whether a kennel is needed in Covington. I know there’s lots of people that would welcome a kennel. This is about a kennel in this particular property,” said Loren Wolff, another Seminary Square resident at the same meeting.
Both Wolff and McGrane spoke against the development at the planning commission meeting in October. Other residents spoke as well, describing worries about noise, odor from animal waste, parking and road safety.
“I share a boundary line–me and three of my neighbors–,” Wolff continued. “It’s about 10 feet from my driveway, where my kids play basketball.”
“Mixed use,” she emphasized. “This means this designation is particularly appropriate when you have historic, dense residential neighborhoods with commercial properties. This is just the fact of living in a dense urban neighborhood. We live there, and we accept this… TUMU has certain businesses that can operate there, and certain businesses that can’t. Kennels are not permitted. Period. Hard stop,” she said.
Representatives from SKLO Acquisitions and Hermes Construction declined to speak on the record.
Planning and zoning
As the federal suit looms in the background, the city has passed legislation to excise kennels from the service-related uses category of the development code.
At a meeting of the Kenton County Planning Commission on April 6, a day before Judge Summe rendered her decision, the City of Covington requested a recommendation from the commission to remove kennels from the examples of service-related uses in the development code. This move would remove any ambiguity about establishing kennels in Covington TUMU zones in the future.
Staff professionals from the county presented the proposed change to the commission and rendered a favorable recommendation for the revision. Belcher and Davidson both attended the meeting but did not make statements during the meeting’s public hearing section.
The commission voted in favor of recommending the change with no discussion.
Following this recommendation, the city commission did two readings of an ordinance revising the code, a change that the text of the ordinance called the correction of a “scrivener’s error.” The city commission voted unanimously to enact the ordinance at the legislative meeting on May 9.
When asked what would happen to Allie’s Walkabout if the lawsuits ended up not ruling in their favor, Clegg said, “We’ll find another location.”
“I don’t view us as so vitally important that, man, we must get this thing,” he added. “Because at the end of the day, God is sovereign. He will decide if doors are going to be opened or not, literally and figuratively… So, that’s all we’re looking to be is a good neighbor that can provide a great service for our neighbors.”