A city advisory board approved a major rewrite of Anchorage's dog and cat laws Tuesday night, but the issues are so controversial that several board members said they still don't like large parts of it.

The changes include a new requirement to license cats and specific rules for noise violations -- so much outside barking per hour would be a violation. The proposal also lengthens the time the city can take to begin hearings on animal control cases.

On the pro-dog front, the city would be required to create some dog parks where they could run off leash.

The Anchorage Animal Control Advisory Board, after working on the proposal for three years, approved it 6-1 at a meeting in the animal control center. Three people sat in the audience.

The city administration has also OK'd the final rewrite, which incorporates some changes that city officials wrote into the law.

The proposal goes next to the Anchorage Assembly, perhaps as early as Tuesday. Because dog and cat behavior provokes strong feelings pro and con, the city wants a five-month public review before the Assembly votes on it, said Jewel Jones, city director of health and human services.

The city decided to overhaul the law because the contractors who enforce it, individuals who filed complaints, and pet owners all found it to be vague, said Don Daniels, an advisory board member and a retired police officer who trained police dogs.

The current animal noise law is a prime example, Daniels said.

"People who don't have dogs interpreted it differently than people who had dogs," he said.

The current animal noise law says, "No owner of an animal may permit it to disturb another person by making repeated or continued noise which interferes with the latter's sleep, work, or reasonable right to peace or privacy."

The proposed new law defines illegal noise as going on for more than 10 minutes in a row during the day and for more than five consecutive minutes between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.

The new noise provisions aren't tough enough in board member Sandy Traini's view.

"Ten minutes is a lot in a 60-minute time period," she said. Hers was the only vote against the proposal.

Other board members with reservations said they voted to approve the document to get it out for public debate or because they think it's better than current law.

"I am deeply disturbed about the hearing process," said board member Neil Koeniger. He said the proposed hearing rules, changed to make them consistent with municipal hearings in other departments, could result in an owner being uncertain about his or her animal's fate for four to six months instead of a few weeks.

"We're talking about a little old lady who opens the door to get her paper and lets the cat out -- jacking her around for four months. It's pretty poor," Koeniger said.

But overall, the new law still is an improvement, he said.

Some major provisions stayed much the same in the proposed new law, including consequences for dog bites, the leash rules, and provisions that allow mushers to temporarily house dogs in neighborhoods.

But one Assembly member has already proposed a measure that would put a damper on visiting Iditarod or Fur Rendezvous dog teams.

Assemblyman Dan Sullivan offered an ordinance in May to prohibit competitive teams being housed even temporarily in neighborhoods zoned R-1, or for single family residences. Sullivan withdrew his proposal, he said, to allow the advisory board to make its recommendations first.

Under the board's proposal, licensing fees for dogs would be the same for one year: $15. But owners could get $3 off each of the second and third year for new multiyear licenses.

The new cat licenses would cost $6 for one year, $11 for two years and $15 for three.

The board wants to license cats to make sure they have rabies vaccinations and to make it easier to identify cats picked up by animal control officers, said Mike Walsh, board chairman.