Local councillor 'really getting tired of talking about dog parks'

Jerry Flegel has been a Regina city councillor since 2003 and he says he is "really getting tired of talking about dog parks."

The city's community and protective services committee discussed three proposed dog parks at Thursday's meeting when Flegel expressed his exasperation at the pace of municipal bureaucracy.

"Why is it taking so long to get a dog park?I mean it's an open field. Put some fence upbe done with it," Flegel said during the meeting, eliciting a chuckle from committee chair Andrew Stevens.

One of the proposed dog parkswould be a municipal fenced park. The other two would be part of apilot projectfor off-leash, un-fenced neighbourhood parks. All three couldbe factored into the next city budget.

A municipal dog park would cost about $160,000 to $200,000 while the smaller neighbourhood parks would cost about $50,000 each. A request for $170,000 from the capital budget has been made.

A portion of the funding for the Mount Pleasant park 30 per cent, or approximately $48,000 would come from servicing agreement fees, and the rest would come from taxation, according to the committee report.

Neighbourhood sites are the smaller dog parks with no off-street parkingthat neighbourhood residents could walk to. Usually, the maximum size of that sort of park would be about a hectare,or 2.5 acres.

It's recommended that the municipal park be built at Mount Pleasant while the other two are proposed for4927Pasqua Street andIannone Park.Administration would use the three-year pilot project to gather data on the use and impact of the sites.

'Just do it'

"Let's just do it. Let's get the $200,000 and fence off Mount Pleasant and do it," Flegel said. "They'll go there if that's the only other one that they can go to, they'll go."

The report was forwarded to the next city council meeting on Nov. 25, where the process could be expedited.

There are currently only two options for off-leash dog parks in Regina with several hockey rinks acting as seasonal, off-leash sites. If Mount Pleasant goes ahead, there would be three municipal parks in Regina.

Council has already approved development for a fenced, neighbourhood-style dog park on a section of the Regent Par 3 site.