Grand Forks, ND Animal Ordinances: Veterinary Clinic Zoning (2026)

City Code section 18-0204 defines a small animal clinic as a facility that provides veterinarian services for small animals and household pets, expressly excluding veterinarian services for domestic animals customarily raised, used or kept on farms for profit, food or other purposes, and excluding kennels or boarding facilities outright. Section 18-0214(2) then lists small animal clinic among the permitted uses in the B-1 limited business district, the zone the code reserves for offices and services without on-site retail sales except as incidental to the principal use.

B-1 also carries through every use permitted in the R-4 high-density residential district, medical offices and clinics, banks, and similar service uses, so a veterinary practice sits alongside other professional-office neighbors rather than industrial or heavy-commercial ones. Because the small-animal definition is written to exclude large-animal and farm veterinary work, a practice that treats livestock, horses, or other farm animals does not qualify for B-1 as a small animal clinic and would need a different district or a conditional use review. The same is true of any facility that boards or kennels animals overnight: that activity falls outside the small animal clinic definition and outside the B-1 permitted-use listing entirely.

Planning and Community Development reviews zoning compliance and building permits for a proposed clinic location, and the zoning administrator determines whether a given practice's services fit the section 18-0204 definition before a certificate of occupancy issues.