Condo association offers insight into rule change affecting service dogs

October 27, 2012 – A prospective tenant who needed accommodation for a service dog was the motivation for changes in condominium rules at Marina City earlier this year.

Responding to an article published by Marina City Online on October 12, Daniel Meyer, an attorney for Marina Towers Condominium Association, offered reasons for the rule changes that were not widely known by residents at Marina City. Meyer provided further insight into how condo boards in general are responding to the increased presence of service animals in residential communities, including “emotional support” animals that may not be specially trained but provide therapeutic benefit to their owners.

“The rules were changed because a prospective tenant noticed the ‘no pets’ language in his proposed lease and MTCA’s governing documents,” explained Meyer (left), “and thereafter made a proper request for a reasonable accommodation.”

On July 10, 2012, at a special board meeting, the rules of Marina City’s condo association were modified to update a policy on cats and specify criteria for service dogs. The next day, residential property manager David Gantt wrote a memo to residents of Marina City’s west tower, alerting them that a service dog had been approved for a resident.

In a letter to Marina City Online, Meyer went on to provide more background on a 2008 dispute between the condo association and a unit owner, Karlene Petitt, who wanted an emotional support dog for her daughter. MTCA denied her request and allegedly spent $27,000 evicting a Pomeranian that lived in Marina City’s east tower for a year.

Although Petitt (right), an airline pilot who lives in Seatec, Washington, was invited to meet with the condo association to provide further information on her request, she declined, fearing she would be billed – as she had for a previous meeting – for legal fees of MTCA’s attorney at the time, Ellis Levin.

When another MTCA attorney assured her that she would not be billed for attending a condo board meeting on January 17, 2008, Petitt was not convinced and again turned down the offer. Meyer defends the condo association more than four years later, saying Petitt “steadfastly refused to justify the request.”

He says the new rules passed in July are in accordance with federal law that requires “reasonable accommodation” for service and support animals when requested.

“A condominium association that makes no reasonable accommodation to residents who have received prescriptions for ‘working dogs’ to ameliorate [improve] any number of physical and other conditions,” says Meyer, “is a condominium association asking for a Fair Housing Act lawsuit.”