The realization of a second off-leash dog park at the Laurentian Playground site on Carruthers Street moved further away last night at city council, as Coun. Mark King, chair of community services, asked question after question, voicing his concerns about the location and the intended use based on the staff report.
“I’ve watched this development for a fair bit of time,” King said after keeping it on committee for further investigation. “I was at the other park, as chair of community services and it’s my job to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
And by putting the park in the middle of a residential area, King isn’t so sure it’s the right move, with the issues it would bring up.
“One thing that’s really been bothering me about that location is the noise—we’re hearing it all over the city and I’ve expressed it to staff,” he said. “What we’re experiencing here are different kinds of noises and we have to make sure it’s not affecting the people that live there—without question. People in neighbourhoods deserve to be able to sleep at night and I know there are shift workers and they deserve to sleep during the day and we have to protect that.”
Coun. Shogren agreed with keeping the plans on hold, for now, feeling like there just wasn’t enough information coming to light about this second dog park and its proposed location.
“I thought the chair asked some pretty pointed questions,” he said. “From my point of view if we’re going to approve a dog park I want to see a picture on a board, I want to see exactly where it’s going to go so again, when we approved the Premier Road one it was very specific, but there just seems to be a lot of unanswered questions here. Referring it to committee and getting more information seems like the right direction to go.”
During the meeting, King also brought up concerns about the spread of disease through the amount of urine, saying he’s heard of concerns about small dogs getting sick as a result of it.
“Quite frankly, I’ve seen a few posts about it on Facebook,” he said. “And why somebody would bring it up if it weren’t true, I don’t know. But we have to look into it.”
To create this first dog park, the city entered into a generous lease agreement with the Humane Society to grant the use of land, located in Champlain Park. However, since the construction of the first dog park in 2014, there have been calls for the second one in a more centralized location.
