DEERFIELD — Following a public hearing attended by more than 50 residents Thursday evening, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Regional Dog Shelter will appear before the Zoning Board of Appeals again next month, as it seeks a special permit to open a dog shelter near Plain Road East.

The ZBA voted unanimously to continue the hearing until April 17, which would be after the applicant’s proposal to construct a roughly 7,000-square-foot building with indoor and outdoor kennels, large dog runs and parking for staff, has gone before the Planning Board and completed a peer review impact study.

The nonprofit acquired the land last year for $135,000. It is seeking to expand the animal shelter’s space and increase the services offered.

According to the application, the shelter has outgrown its current site on Sandy Lane in Turners Falls, which has about 1,570 square feet of functional space. The Turners Falls building is also in decline, with deteriorating walls, insufficient insulation, chipped floors and a roof that has suffered several major leaks over the years.

“We’ve outgrown it,” shelter Director Leslee Colucci explained. “We started off with four towns; we now have the whole Franklin County that brings dogs to us. Every county in this state has brought dogs to us and we’ve helped many outside county lines.”

While Plain Road East residents expressed concern that the future shelter would negatively impact traffic safety and flooding, other community members, such as Pekarski’s Sausage owner Mike Pekarski, commended the nonprofit for its mission to rescue abandoned animals.

“This is a no-kill shelter. Humane is how their heart beats; humane is how they conduct themselves every day,” Pekarski said. “They are forced to be the family of these dogs, and sometimes cats, because the humans who chose to be their guardians failed them.”

In a presentation before the ZBA, Carlos Nieto, a Berkshire Design Group principal and landscape architect, and Colucci presented the proposal, highlighting stormwater management plans, ways to mitigate light and noise pollution, and the shelter’s general operation plans.

Nieto explained he plans to keep the trees and shrubs surrounding the site to act as a sound barrier. He added that although the site is roughly 13 acres, the nonprofit would only use about 1.6 acres of the land.

“What we’re going to be actually utilizing is the flatter area of the site, so we are minimizing the amount of actual disturbance to the whole site. We are minimizing the disturbance to any plants or any trees that are existing there,” Nieto explained. “We’re trying to keep all the natural vegetation on site.”

To dispel concerns over the shelter worsening traffic conditions in the area, Nieto told the board that a traffic study found the shelter was expected to produce 107 vehicle trips per day, which, given the shelter’s appointment-only operation, would consist of vehicles entering and leaving the site frequently.

In an effort to improve the property’s drainage, Nieto also told the board that the shelter will take on the cost of installing an additional water main in the area. He said the shelter plans to build an access driveway to allow emergency response vehicles easy access to and from the site.

Still, multiple abutters, such as Joshua Rose, of Plain Road East, feared the site’s traffic impacts will lead to unsafe conditions for pedestrians, particularly those with disabilities.

“I’m attempting to encourage the town of Deerfield to not allow the proposed Franklin County Sheriff’s [Office] Regional Dog Shelter to use our narrow, approximately 14-foot-wide, low-traffic, dead-end road for commercial purposes,” Rose said. “Increasing the traffic will force our town to attempt to make improvements. ADA standards will require a 4-foot sidewalk on each side.”

Other abutters, such as Plain Road East resident Kamala Bouche, said she feared the dog shelter would harm Deerfield’s agricultural style and landscape.

“I’m worried about Deerfield and about the farmland in Deerfield. In 25 years, if we aren’t very, very careful, we will no longer have Deerfield as we love Deerfield. It’s very, very different from when I was a little girl, when it was all farmland,” Bouche said. “I’m for this organization; what they’re doing is amazing. I don’t feel that on our little bitty dead-end road, 14 feet wide, is the appropriate place for it. I would see the building from my home.”

Although Zoning Board of Appeals member Mark Brennan motioned to approve the special permit under standard conditions, the board ultimately voted to continue the hearing until its April 17 meeting to allow the Planning Board time to determine proper conditions for the permit.

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.