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ice Creek Animal Hospital Mere your Pets are family. 65 1 1 Ware RJ. juite i 4o Lino Lakes, MN 55o j i- (65 1 )485-61 28 www.ricecreekvet.com 3 August 2014 Rice Creek Animal Hospital 6511 Ware Road Lino Lakes, MN 55014 Lino Lakes City Council 600 Towne Center Parkway Lino Lakes, MN 55014 Dear Ladies and Gentleman of the Lino Lakes City Council, We hope the summer months find you content and rested enjoying this beautiful community of ours. We are the founders and operators of Rice Creek Animal Hospital, a neighborhood veterinary hospital started within the Spirit Hills Mall five years ago. As any start up entrepreneur (and I am sure some of you can empathize), we have been so grateful to survive our early years and with the support of our neighbors, we have been incredibly grateful to have grown... so much so that we are in need of a new space. After much research and planning (including many visits to City Hall), we are in negotiations with the owners of the property immediately to the south of our current location on the corner of Hodgson and Birch (contingent on your response to our proposal). This property is perfect for our needs as it serves our existing clientele, is minutes from home, and quite honestly, respects our other local veterinary clinics (as there were more affordable property with even better visibility but encroached on our peers' existing businesses or was out of the Lino city limits). The only unfortunate notion associated with this property is it is zoned as neighborhood business (where veterinarians are not included). We would like to propose a change of the existing definition of neighborhood business to include veterinary hospitals. Hopefully some of the following points may help encourage you that veterinarians are applicable to your definition of neighborhood business and that Rice Creek Animal Hospital would be an appropriate use for this beautiful property (and a continued positive influence in our community): • Essentially, we feel we are indeed the definition of a "neighborhood" business. Over 90% of our business is within a 2 mile radius. We love our clients, live in the neighborhood, our children go to school here, and we offer discounts to our local police, fire, and EMTs as well as all of our military veterans. (And would welcome the opportunity to care for Officers Noll and Justice of the Lino PD- CONGRATS on earning the top title at the agility trial!). We already have police dogs stopping by our home on Friday nights... we'd be honored to have another! We support the high school athletic teams and have an annual open house inviting all of our neighbors to enjoy a fun day at the clinic. • The city's definition of neighborhood business includes similar scale businesses like dental offices, salons, etc. Our traffic generated would likely be similar (if not less) than these facilities so the transition for veterinary hospitals to be included in the category of neighborhood business should have no different traffic impact than the existing plans for the property.