The city will not proceed with six proposed dog parks in established neighbourhoods. It will instead consider new areas for future parks when outline plans or amendments come to council.
Council made the decision at its April 18 meeting after engagement with the community. The city will work with BILD Lethbridge, land developers and landowners moving forward to develop design standards for new dog parks. Opportunity Lethbridge will identify underutilized city-owned land that could be used for future dog parks.
Public engagement began on options for adding more off-leash dog parks in 2021 and the parks and cemetery department presented a plan with public engagement as a key component. Six locations were identified to be explored further through the engagement in spring 2022.
“This process has been a great example of our Council engaging with – and then directly listening to – our residents on a matter we found to be of great significance to them,” says Acting Mayor Ryan Parker. “On behalf of city council, I want to thank our residents for actively participating and providing us with their valued feedback. I also want to thank our Administration, specifically the Parks & Cemeteries staff, for their efforts in exploring what options existed as well as for suggesting an appropriate direction moving forward.”
The second phase of the engagement survey was available at the start of this year for all residents and a community conversation was held on January 18.
Councillor Jeff Carlson pointed out in the meeting this week that a couple of the locations received significant support from the community and he questioned why they were being turned down anyway.
“What we heard from the engagement is it’s better to spend our time and effort on improving the ones that we have, making sure they have proper amenities, making sure they have seating, making sure they have washrooms etcetera, than adding more,” Councillor Belinda Crowson said. She added a lot of the concern heard from the community was people not picking up after their dogs.
The decision was carried unanimously at council and Carlson expressed disappointment the well-supported potential park locations will not be explored further right now.