HICKORY CREEK — After it was over Tuesday evening, Paula Davis just wanted to go home.
Friends and family wouldn’t let her back her truck out of the parking spot at Town Hall because she was sobbing so hard. The Hickory Creek Town Council had just denied her a special-use permit to continue operating her 14-year-old business training and boarding dogs.
With tears streaming down her face, Davis stepped out of her truck and into the chilly night air to make the three-mile trek to the only home her two teenage children have ever known.
The business she built helped the single mother provide for her family and her ailing mother, but it was inextricably tied to her modest lakeside home on the east side of town.
She couldn’t tell the council any more plainly — denying the permit meant the end of living and running her business in Hickory Creek. Council members did it anyway.
“They took my home,” Davis said. “They took my life.”
Davis had been running her business for more than 14 years without a permit.
She understood the need to comply, but she wasn’t operating in secret either. Previous town officials knew her business was there. Neighbors knew she was there. People down the street complained about barking dogs from time to time, and a town official would come by and tell her to get things under control and that would be the end of it, she said.
Davis boards dogs by confining them to play areas in her yard. Her clientele includes pet owners whose dogs can’t tolerate standard kennels. But she also helps pet owners with dogs that have problems, and, last November, that’s when the real trouble began.
Corinth residents Vincent and Demetria Tricomi boarded their three dogs with Davis over the Thanksgiving holidays when one of the dogs, Jax, a chow-collie mix, got in a fight with a pit bull and was killed. When the couple realized they had no recourse for what happened, they made a formal complaint to Town Hall about Davis’ business.
“I don’t know that I had this outcome in mind when we made the complaint,” Vincent Tricomi said, adding that he was looking for more regulation for pet-keeping businesses. But he was glad that the city pursued it.
Davis’ style of dog care is growing in popularity, although Davis said she’s much more affordable than similar businesses in other cities. Once the owner leaves, most dogs do well in play yards with other dogs because none is there long enough to establish dominance.
“It’s no different than a dog park,” Davis said, adding that only twice has she had to send dogs back home after determining that they were antisocial.
After the Tricomis’ complaint, Hickory Creek code enforcement wrote Davis a ticket, essentially shutting her business down. Then the department wrote another letter demanding that she shut her Web site down, too.
Town leaders told her that she would have to apply for a special-use permit to continue running her business out of her house. Davis was agreeable. She made the application, paid the fee and began polling neighbors, getting signatures of agreement to the special-use permit.
Nearly everyone signed. Davis brought clients and other supporters to the planning and zoning meeting earlier this month, but despite the favorable testimony, commissioners voted 4-1 to deny the application based on advice from the town attorney. Commissioner John Woodrum cast the lone dissent, saying that he couldn’t deny the permit because times were tough and the business was her livelihood.
Davis almost couldn’t bring herself to attend the Town Council meeting, and told most of her supporters to stay home. Only her family and her closest neighbor came to speak in support of her application.
But the rest of the neighborhood, including many people who signed the original petition agreeing to let Davis stay, came to speak out in opposition to her business.
Several council members commented how difficult it was to have seen the neighborhood become so divided over the issue.
The Tricomis also had taken their complaint to the media, and the presence of trucks, towers and cameras after the death of their dog simply overwhelmed the neighborhood.
“I mean no harm for Paula,” Vicky Vanzura said. “But I purchased for a residential area. I’m against rezoning with a special-use permit.
“I was not aware there was a business there until the TV came and the towers were going up and the protests interrupted the sanctity of our neighborhood.”
Davis made an ardent plea for her business, and told the council that rumors around town that she ran a puppy mill or was going to build a big kennel on her vacant land were insulting.
Davis’ attorney, William Brotherton, reminded the council that a special-use permit does not change the zoning, despite fears expressed by some neighbors that granting Davis’ request would change the land to commercial. He told the council that Flower Mound had frequently made similar accommodations as city life encroached on the countryside.
He also cautioned the council that denying Davis the permit could spark a witch-hunt for other people working out of their homes, from carpenters or plumbers to eBay sellers.
All the council members present said it had been the most difficult decision they had ever considered, but they voted unanimously to deny the special-use permit.
Town Attorney Lance Vanzant told council members that they could work with Davis and her attorney to allow her to stay open for a limited period of time as she moved.
Wednesday morning, Davis began pulling the threads of two decades of life in a quiet cul-de-sac in one of Hickory Creek’s oldest subdivisions. As a local real estate agent wrapped up his visit and left the house with a somber look on his face, Davis said she has not yet broken the news to Dusty, her 13-year-old son, but she’ll be listing the house soon.
She’s still trying to decide about the 3 acres she owns across the street, since she knows if she sells, it will be developed and she doesn’t want to do that to her longtime neighbors. Her mother will move in with her sister.
“I don’t know where I will go,” Davis said, as tears started streaming again.
Davis said she’s grateful that she can continue to operate, since the move will be costly, and she’s hopeful that Dusty can finish the school year with his friends and the teachers he knows. But she’s still struggling to get her mind around everything that’s happened in the past four months.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Davis said.
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