There is a beautiful off-leash area on Beacon Hill in Seattle – it’s like a miniature Marymoor at 4+ acres with a spectacular view of downtown. Until very recently the site has received almost no maintenance or advertizing from the Parks Department or the Citizens for Off-Leash Areas (COLA) and so it was under used and became run down and overgrown with weeds. The homeless moved in and with them the gang members who prey upon them. Dog owners coming to the site for the first time would see the deplorable condition of the park and not return, although the park has a group of regulars.
Sometime in 2009 the Chairman of Citizens for Off-Leash Areas told the Parks Department that COLA was not interested in the site. The Parks Department, taking its cue, began exploring other uses for the space.
Recently the Mayor fast tracked the installation of a multi-use trail alongside the off-leash area which promises to change the dynamics of the park. Police can patrol via bikes. The trail will be lighted. A major clean-up of the off-leash area was done. Massive amounts vegetative debris were removed. The homeless were routed. Vagrants had been living under the freeway and coming into the off-leash area to use the water source for bathing. They kept wrecking the fencing, which meant dogs could get out. Now the spigot has been turned off.
The new trail wiped out the off-leash area’s western fence line. Since the fence line can be redefined and WDOT is paying for it the Parks Department wants to take the opportunity to fence off sections of the off-leash area to allow other uses of the space. They want to reduce the dog park from 4 to 2 acres. The rationale is that putting other user groups in the park will improve attendance and thus do a better job of dispelling illicit activity plus it will “activate the neighborhood”– the City doesn’t think there is a community of dog owners using the site and so wants to dedicate the space to some other type of user group on Beacon Hill.
The COLA Chairman claims that for the past three years he could not find anyone to steward the site.
As a result of recent grassroots efforts, we now have six people volunteering to be steward. Now that the Jose Rizal Off-Leash Area has been spruced up attendance is picking up. Word is spreading about this valuable resource. It is the only nearby option for residents of Capitol Hill. It is a handy alternative to users of the Blue Dog park in winter when that site becomes flooded. Many people say it’s their favorite off-leash area because it’s relatively big. Newcomers to the park are saying they just heard about it through social media. There is hope that attendance will soon reach a tipping point and the site can be deemed active.
The Jose Rizal Off-Leash Area was set up in 2001 and the Parks Department has not yet put up a sign announcing its location.
In the upper level of the off-leash area lie the remnants of an old orchard. The Parks Department Crew Chief is an orchardist. In 2010 the Parks Department Office of Sustainability saw fit to allow the nonprofit City Fruit to come into the Jose Rizal Off-Leash Area and conduct an internship program teaching people how to tend to fruit trees. This was paid for by Department of Natural Resources money. There are some restrictions against volunteers working in an off-leash area and this may be what is driving the effort to fence off the off-leash area. Trees apparently require a lot of attention and the free labor of volunteer arborists would have to be attractive to a Parks Department that is suffering from budget cuts.
Parks is offering multiple reasons for divvying up the off-leash area. They want to make it safer by making it smaller (safer for whom? For the dog owners? Parks has been using dog owners as a human shield. For the orchardists or the bicyclists?) They want to “activate” the community. They want to make it flatter somehow. They want to make it “better” and “nicer” for the dog owners. They want to make it “more manageable.” As a dog owner, I find all of these reasons fishy.
The notion that making the off-leash area smaller and bringing in other user groups as a method of increasing foot traffic makes no sense. It would be hard to imagine a user group more diverse than dog owners. There is no group more motivated to come to the park day or night, rain or shine. And the cops tell me there is no better crime deterrent than off-leash dogs, outside of bullets and bombs.
The Parks Department has been holding its cards close to its chest. We will finally have a chance to get the details of its proposal for reconfiguring the off-leash space tomorrow night, Thursday, October 20
th, 6:30pm at the Jefferson Community Center, 3801 Beacon Avenue, S. It looks like this will be the first and last chance the public will have to comment as they want the fencing done by late November.
Dog owners need large spaces to adequately exercise and socialize their dogs so that they can get them under control. Having controlled dogs helps everyone. Dog owners represent almost 40% of the population and the other 60% are impacted by the behavior of our dogs. Frederick Law Olmsted did not anticipate the need for off-leash areas so the City should be engaged in retrofitting this city with adequate canine infrastructure. We need to be expanding our off-leash space to catch up with the needs of urban dog owners not reducing it. We have arguably 240,000 dog owners in Seattle with at least 275,000 dogs and population is on the rise. According to Department of Neighborhood Statistics this means another 72,000 dog owners with at least another 83,000 dogs by 2031.
There is an agreement between the Parks Department and COLA that when Parks sees fit to take off-leash acreage away it must endeavor to compensate with contiguous space on some other boundary of the site. This provision was set up in the beginning to conserve any off-leash space that gets set up. The Parks Department would like this clause dropped from the contract.
You hear a lot about responsible vs. irresponsible dog owners. How about responsible cities? Cities must realize that they actively collude in their own animal control problems if they don’t do everything they can to help dog owners get their dogs under control – and cities can do a lot. One of the best ways a city can help is by providing adequate off-leash space. When there’s a gruesome incident involving dogs the individual dog owner and his victim will be paying the price for a city that has failed to set up adequate, welll-designed off-leash areas. Dog owners are liable for the damages their dogs cause. It isn’t right for the City to hold itself harmless and stick dog owners in cramped off-leash spaces that are recipes for disaster and canine institutes for bad behavior. 2 acres is cramped.
The City complains about dog owners who persist in going off-leash where they are not allowed. The City bears some responsibility. Seattle’s off-leash areas are generally too small. The savvy dog owner has the good sense not to bring his dog into a tight enclosure with other dogs if the dog isn’t up to it. The City needs to set up off-leash spaces that accommodate all dogs, not just the little and the woozy. Spaciousness is the key design element of a well-designed off-leash area.
I’m angry on behalf of all citizens that the Parks Department, in league with COLA, would allow this large off-leash area to die and to suggest that smaller is better. On the subject of space – Parks doesn’t get it.
I’m angry that after years of neglecting maintenance at Jose Rizal the City would like to sweep its failure under the rug and cover it up with the notion that now it is going to clean up crime by taking away half of the off-leash s
pace. It may be that if the City had maintained Jose Rizal it never would have become seedy in the first place.
The Parks Department is treating the Jose Rizal Off-Leash Area like surplus land that it can avail itself of when it has a pet project. We cannot allow this to become a modus operandi. The Parks Department heads up the off-leash program. That means it should be fostering, nurturing and supporting the program – not feeding on it.
The City is in a position to provide the space and it behooves the city to do so especially as population increases. Seattle can afford to be generous. It is not generous. Seattle has more park land than most cities yet the City allocates only .4% – that’s point four percent – of its park land to off-leash use.
Getting our dogs into a manageable state through exercise and socialization benefits everyone. It’s the first step towards responsible dog ownership. Large, well-designed off-leash areas enhance the dog owner’s ability to manage his dog. The City has a mandate to promote responsible dog ownership. Setting up spacious off-leash areas is one of the best and easiest ways a city can help dog owners be responsible.
Frieda Adams
Responsible Dog Owners for Responsible Cities
www.home.earthlink.net/~fojrola
