Reacting to continued criticism, Cincinnati Parks says it can cut back man-made surfaces and improve crops in a canine park it plans for Clifton’s Burnet Woods.
Its latest design requires 9.5% much less synthetic turf, concrete pavers and pea gravel; 20% more room for plant beds; and a 2,800-square-foot prairie meadow to draw birds, buffer noise and management erosion. The turf could be freed from PFAS, thought-about a “forever chemical,” parks officers mentioned.
The modifications comply with “a tremendous amount of valuable public feedback received over the last few years,” parks officers mentioned in a press launch.
Much of the suggestions has come from opponents who’ve spoken at conferences, demonstrated at park workplaces and waged social media efforts since parks started contemplating a Clifton-area canine park in 2014.
Preserve Burnet Woods isn’t pleased with the method or consequence.
“We’re very dissatisfied that parks is continuous to shoehorn this challenge right into a group with a transparent and vocal majority in opposition,” the group’s president, Cynthia Duval, mentioned in an emailed assertion.
Opponents imagine a canine park would create noise and go away behind canine waste, hurt the pure habitat and take {dollars} wanted for different parks priorities. A November 2022 petition on Change.orgwhich attracted near 1,500 supporters, known as the canine park “incompatible with current makes use of of and services in Burnet Woods.”
As designed, the 8,800-square-foot canine park would take up 0.2% of Burnet Wood’s almost 90 acres, close to Jefferson Avenue and Brookline Drive. Parks has dedicated $300,000 to the challenge, looking for as much as $150,000 extra from donors.
Assuming funds are in hand, parks will search a contractor to build the challenge within the spring, aiming for a mid-2024 completion.
Officials will proceed to take public remark with a new survey that closes Dec. 15.
Seeking enter this far into the method “is unethical and a deliberate marginalizing of these most impacted by the end result,” Duval’s group mentioned. “It’s a denial of lived expertise and procedural injustice.”
