CALGARY – Calgary’s off-leash areas may become a place where dogs run free, but their masters pay.
City hall is pledging to expand pand and improve its network of off-leash sites, with 15 new areas by late 2011 and demands that developers include dog parks in plans for new suburbs.
But to pay for better maintenance nance at the sites, city officials said Tuesday they will study introducing user fees, with some suggesting an annual cost of between $10 and $25.
Several dog owners bristled at the idea of paying a fee for using off-leash parks.
"It’s totally unreasonable," said Kim Cowdy, while she walked her pooch in a northeast green space near Beddington, which isn’t technically an off-leash park, but frequented by dog owners nonetheless.
"A user fee seems like another way for the city to target dog owners," said Cowdy, adding having fenced and maintained off-leash areas should be standard for any city with more than one million people and roughly 100,000 dogs.
"Do they charge parents to take their kids to the park?"
Edyta Gregoire disagreed, saying a user fee for dog owners is a good idea, for the most part.
"But if we are going to pay, we need real dog parks, with grass and fences and they need to be maintained," she said.
Gregoire said she has frequented several of Calgary’s parks for nearly five years and often sees large garbage bins left for collecting feces overflowing with waste and fences that are falling apart, or non-existent.
Gregoire also noted that Calgary’s version of dog parks differs greatly from off-leash areas in the United States
"Here, they are just empty pieces of land, mostly dirt," she said. "In the States, they have grass and benches and paths and they are clean. I would pay for something like that."
Many council members supported the user-pay principle, but Ald. Brian Pincott and others acknowledged it’s tricky to implement.
For instance, adding a fee to dog licences might be unfair, since some owners don’t use off-leash areas. Pincott pitched a special tag system for pooches that go to off-leash areas.
"Everybody has a great desire to increase the garbage collection and increase garbage cans and increase maintenance of the areas, and how are we going to pay for it?" said Pincott.
Ald. John Mar supported the city’s efforts to look at other ways to raise revenue, such as sponsorships.
"Why not a Purina River Park, for instance?" said Mar, who often gives his Yorkshire terrier the run of his aldermanic office. "We should look at that first, so it does not end up being another fee for the citizen."
The report exploring fee schemes is due by next December, with possible implementation by 2011.
Nan Douglas, who lives near the busy River Park dog run, said when the city has trouble finding funding for various projects, a fee system makes sense.
"I think in some respects users should bear the brunt," Douglas told a council committee Tuesday.
Residents around River Park and the Southland off-leash areas have long complained they’re overcrowded, creating a parking nightmare and clashes between dogs and other park-goers.
Cowdy suggested the city also consider making off-leash parks exclusive to dogs, which will help alleviate some of the clashes between humans and canines. If people can have parks and playgrounds, so, too, should dogs, she said.
"There are already so few good areas to go now, and not all of them are dog-friendly," she said. "They can’t keep allowing dogs and cyclists to use the same park, it’s a bad combination."
The city will study which parks need fencing, other barriers, more waste bins, fountains or public bathrooms, and fund improvements on a priority basis.
Creating new sites should also take pressure off those busiest off-leash areas, said city parks director Anne Charlton.
The city has determined that the northeast and southwest quadrants are most in need of new off-leash areas. Calgary now boasts 138 of them, but many are tiny and barely used by the city’s roughly 100,000 dog owners.
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