PRINCE GEORGE – The City recently identified two parks that had potential to become off-leash dog parks.
The first was Ingledew off of Queensway in the Millar Addition and the other was Malaspina Park in College Heights.
But this is the tale of two parks.
Ingledew Park now is a dog park with a bit of tweaking by the City. Malaspina Park, however, has been tentatively put on hold as it is also a location for a potential daycare.
“At the time of identifyling existing parks that were maybe underutilized, that we could convert to off-leash areas, the daycare plan was not public knowledge,” explains Blake McIntosh, Director of Civic Operations. “So there’s a little bit of a conflict and we were successful in getting the grant [for the day care] and that’s where we’re at today.”
But that could leave College Heights as the only neighbourhood without an off-leash dog park.
“Right now you’ve got one at Ingledew that was established, you’ve got Duchess which is downtown, you’ve got Ginter’s whhich is kind of central for a lot of people and there is one up in the Hart as well. College Heights is undersupplied,” says Annie Booth, an advocate for dog parks. “There are a lot of spaces that are used unofficially. By ‘unofficially’ I mean illegally.”
She says most civic planners don’t realize what an amenity dog parks are to a community.
“People think about it as a people versus dogs. It isn’t. Every dog in a dog park is accompanied by a person who pays taxes, who lives in the city, who deserves consideration for the amenities as much as anybody with a kid or a teenager who skateboards. But it’s one of the great undervalued amenities a City can offer its residents.”
So it’s back to the drawing board for the City as it tries to narrow down a location for an off-leash dog park in an under-represented neighbourhood.
