The announcement by the Vancouver Park Board to stop all plans to cut the popular Trout Lake off-leash dog park by 80 per cent has left canine owners overjoyed.
At a meeting with Dog Lovers of Trout Lake, which spearheaded a rally, launched a Facebook group, Twitter and Instagram campaign and gathered support for their petition against the VPB’s changes, the Park Board general manager Malcolm Bromley said there are no longer any cuts planned for the park.
“We were extremely concerned about the proposed changes, but in the end the Parks staff met with us, listened to the community, and they did the right thing by putting a stop to this cut,” says Erin Filtness, who was part of dog-friendly group that met with the Park Board.
Instead, Bromley explained the board is embarking on a city-wide dog off-leash planning process, which is slated for 2015 and will look at off-leash spaces across the city.
The proposed cut was initially part of a new master plan for the park that would have defined how it would evolve over the next 10 to 15 years. The plan cited concerns over the lack of defined boundaries between the off-leash area and the rest of the park, and the lack of loop trails.
VPB has invited representatives from the Trout Lake group to participate in the new process.
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