Dogs’ best friends prevailed on Saturday, winning county approval for a new dog park in North Arlington. Speakers carrying stuffed dogs, and one wearing a Scooby Doo head, succeeded in urging County Board members to approve a new site for the Community Canine Area, or dog park, now located in Fort Ethan Allen park.
After a sometimes bitter and divisive four-year search for a new home to the dog park, Board members voted 4-1 to move it to a fenced site next to the Madison Community Center, at 3829 N. Stafford St. Construction of the new dog park, which is projected to cost $400,000, will take 18 months, with an anticipated opening in late 2005. Until then, dogs and dog owners will continue to visit the current site.
Wendy Habicht takes Isabel, her 6-year-old lab-beagle mix, to the dog park every morning and evening. She’s pleased the park will stay open. “It’s a great way for her to continue being a social dog.”
<b>BUT NEIGHBORS OF</b> the proposed site left the meeting disappointed, after asking the Board to vote against plans for a dog park they say will be right in their backyards. “This is not a ‘dogs vs. no-dogs’ issue,” said Christopher Guttman-McCabe, a Stafford Street homeowner.
Instead, neighbors said, it was an issue of noise, of smell, and of the safety of children and seniors who spend their day at Madison Community Center. Dog feces will attract rats, neighbors said, adding to an already existing problem.
“When you put hundreds of animals together, day after day, in a small space, plants don’t grow,” said Rita Kobylenski, another neighbor. “People who visit go there, wipe off their feet and go home. We who live there have to look at it, smell it and deal with it every day.”
Their complaints convinced Board member Paul Ferguson, the lone vote against the dog park’s new location. “I understand the process. I understand they couldn’t find another site,” he said. “I think this would have faced opposition no matter where they decided to move it.”
But other board members followed the advice of dog park supporter Laura McDonald. The search for a new home for the park needed to come to an end. “There is no perfect site,” she said, and urged the board to approve plans for Madison Community Center, calling it the best option available.
While they agreed, Board members echoed the comments of Chair Barbara Favola. There is a long process still to come before the new dog park opens, she said. In that time, county staff and dog park supporters need to reach out to Stafford Street neighbors, and try to address their concerns.
<b>CURRENTLY, THE DOG PARK</b> sits within the boundaries of a historic district established around Fort Ethan Allen, built in 1861 to serve as part of the District’s defensive perimeter during the Civil War.
Embankments, a guardhouse and a bomb shelter still stand at the site, and members of a county historic affairs advisory commission called the fort one of the best-preserved artifacts of the war in Arlington. It was designated a county landmark in 1978, and the historic district was established to protect the earthworks and buildings at the site.
But the community could and did still use the park, with a designated dog walking area first established by the county in the 1980s. In the late-1980s, that area was turned into a formal dog exercise area, fenced off by the county.
During daily visits to the dog park at Fort Ethan Allen, Elway gets his running out. “He loves to run,” said Becky Bacon, owner of the 2-year-old lab-golden retriever mix. “He gets an opportunity to stretch.”
The park has also been the source of friends for Bacon, who moved to Arlington with her husband last year. “I met a majority of the people I know in Arlington there,” she said.
Since 2000, though, county staff and residents have tried to find a new home for the dog park at the behest of historians and preservationists hoping to turn the fort into an attraction for historical tourism.
An earlier working group suggested moving the dog park to the Madison Community Center site in 2002, but their suggestion was rejected as not coming with sufficient community representation. A second task force, including civic association representatives, historical preservationists and dog park advocates began meeting in January. On June 8, members of that task force voted 15-1, with two abstaining, to recommend the Madison Community Center site as the new home for the dog park.
<b>SEARCHING FOR</b> the dog park’s new home was not always a warm-and-fuzzy process. Accusations of conspiracies, vandalism and elitism flew between neighbors and dog park supporters.
Neighbors opposing the park were upset they “may have to find a new site for their wine and cheese soirees,” said Rebecca Halbe, a member of Arlington Dogs, and dog park supporters hinted that vandalism at the current site might be linked to vengeful neighbors.
For their part, North Stafford neighbors saw collusion between elected officials and manipulative dog owners, collusion that made the whole search process “a sham,” Guttman-McCabe said.
Any decision on dog parks will be watched eagerly by the community, said Peter Fallon, head of the Task Force that selected the new site for the Fort Ethan Allen canine area. In a 2002 survey on park usage by county residents, dog parks “tied with basketball courts as the most popular recreation site,” he told the Board, and 55 percent of those surveyed ranked dog parks as “important” or “very important.”
“Last year, next to baseball, this might be the issue on which we had citizen comments [most often,]” said Board member Walter Tejada.
In early 2003, Alexandria residents turned out in force at neighborhood association, Planning Commission and City Council meetings for discussions of a dog park in the city’s Windmill Hill Park. The furor that erupted over plans to fence that dog run played a role in the loss of some Republicans in the May 2003 city elections.
Arlington has seven current dog parks, including the Ethan Allen area. But of those seven, five are in South Arlington, said Tobin Smith, chair of the county’s parks and recreation advisory commission, a fact that added importance to maintaining the Ethan Allen area crucial in North Arlington. “Simply eliminating it … from parks and recreation’s perspective, is not an option.”
Concerns about the parks are understandable beforehand, Smith said, but they are not borne out by the facts. “For people who are concerned, I say I have two of these within walking distance of my house, and property values haven’t gone down.”