The principle of turning a part of Grey Park at Ridge Avenue and Main Street into a dog park got an usually beneficial reception at a 9th Ward conference Wednesday night.
The city has actually been seeking to include more off-leash play areas for dogs given that the city’s dog beach was rendered unusable by increasing lake levels numerous years earlier.
Falling lake levels allowed resuming the dog beach this year, however lots of people with pooches are still wishing for more alternatives.
Two years ago city staff conducted an extensive analysistotal with public conferences and an online study, of possible dog park websites — however high opposition from next-door neighbors of each of the proposed websites doomed that effort to discover a brand-new place.
Grey Park didn’t make it to the list because evaluation — with staff stating that given that it, like numerous other parks, is extremely near homes, it didn’t seem worth checking out even more.
Ald. Juan Geracaris (9th) welcomed surrounding Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma, whose fourth Ward consists of Grey Park, to talk about the Grey Park dog park principle at Wednesday night’s online conference.
Nieuwsma said the concept of utilizing Grey Park was recommended by a citizen at a neighborhood conference a number of months earlier and has actually gotten assistance from homeowners in his ward.
“We’re going to move ahead and start the planning phase for this park,” Nieuwsma said, consisting of a neighborhood conference arranged by the city’s neighborhood advancement and parks departments this summer season or fall.
Nieuwsma said next-door neighbors have actually informed him they’d “enjoy having this amenity in the neighborhood that would bring some positive energy to that corner.”
Many homeowners have actually grumbled throughout the years about what they may call “negative energy” from using the east end of the park by homeowners of the Albany Care nursing home throughout Maple Avenue from the park.
Nieuwsma said just a part of the 1.5 acre park would be transformed to the dog park. “We want to reserve some of the park for human residents as well,” he included.
Brian Becharas inquired about fencing for the park — to decrease the danger of animals being struck by automobiles on heavily-traveled Ridge Avenue.
Nieuwsma said fencing would require to be adequate to ensure the safety of dogs and people which it hadn’t been chosen which part of the park would be transformed for dog park usage yet.
City staff, in their 2021 report, said a dog park area would require to be at least half an acre in size — or about a third of the size of Grey Park.
Nieuwsma said the cost of the dog park would require to be consisted of in the 2024 city budget plan which “hopefully” the cost would “not be very much.”
