Recently, questions have been posed to Okotoks town council about dog parks in town.
Questions around the expansion or creation of new off-leash parks in town were addressed in the July 15 town council meeting, and Councillor Rachel Swendseid recently took to Facebook to answer some of the more commonly asked questions they hear about dog parks.
Currently, the Town of Okotoks has one off-leash dog park in the Drake Landing Loop, but there are more on the way.
"So, there are two developer-led dog parks that are scheduled," Councillor Swendseid told Okotoks/High River Online. "One will be in Wedderburn and one will be in Tillotson that are developer-led."
Swendseid says that the Town acknowledges that dog parks are important to locals, so they have worked with developers to include dog parks in their neighbourhood designs.
"In the neighbourhood planning, now when we work with developers, when administration works with developers, they actually let the developers know that dog parks are really important and needs to be included in the neighbourhood design. So, when the developer is designing their neighbourhoods, they will incorporate, now, for example, a dog park. And also, when it's developer-led, it is not taxpayer-funded, it is funded by the developer," Swendseid says.
Currently, the only dog park in Okotoks doesn't have any shade for anyone to duck into whenever it gets too hot.
Councillor Swendseid says that even if trees get added to the new dog parks being built by the developers, it could take some time for them to grow big enough to provide shade.
"For me personally, I would like to see a multi-use off-leash park somewhere where there are mature trees because even though there are two developer-led dog parks happening, the shade that will happen there, in my opinion, it's not going to be established fast enough as if we had one in the river valley."
Swendseid says that there have been talks about adding shade to the current dog park, but there are some challenges involved with that.
There is currently a restrictive covenant on the current dog park.
The land is the site of an old gas plant, and as such, there are a lot of restrictions on the land, making it hard for the Town to add shade and upgrade the park.
Prior to doing any work, the Town needs to wait for a reclamation certificate to arrive.
So, what about a dog park by the river where there is already lots of shade?
"We have heard from lots of Okotokians that they would like river access to the Sheep River. I totally hear that, I really understand that. It was one of my first inquiries that I provided in the council meeting when I was elected. The reason why the recommendation was not to provide a river-access dog park is for two reasons. They are both environmental reasons. One is increased sedimentation and the second is impact to water quality."
Because of the Sheep River's low flow levels, the Town is concerned about the amount of increased sediment and nutrients from dog poop can impact aquatic habitats.
"The other reason is we pull water from the Sheep River. Like, we have wells on the Sheep River. We are pulling our drinking water from there."
Swendseid adds that the water treatment plants would have to work harder if the river became filled with dog poop.
There had been talks about creating a multi-use area where off-leashed dogs were allowed, but town council decided against it because there are already two developer-led dog parks being built, and the Town didn't want to spend taxpayer's money on something that the developers are already doing.
Once the parks are developed, the responsibility of maintaining the parks falls onto the Town.
Swendseid wants to reassure everyone that once those two dog parks are fully developed, everyone will be able to use them, not just those who live in the neighbourhoods.
To learn more about dog parks in Okotoks, click here.
