The City of New Westminster will consult with Royal City residents about off-leash areas for dogs in the coming months.
Dean Gibson, the city's director of parks, culture and recreation, said the city is receiving "with some frequency" comments and questions from the community about dogs in city parks. The city has created off-leash parks in various parts of the city for about a dozen years and believes it's time to take a holistic look at the off-leash program and to get public input.
"Within the last six to eight months, they keep popping up," Gibson said about letters from residents. "There has been 10 or 11 communications with some really good ideas."
Currently, the City of New Westminster provides designated off-leash areas in the Downtown (a temporary location), Queensborough, the West End, the Quay, Queen's Park, the Westburnco reservoir and Hume Park.
"When you put that on a map there is pretty good distribution throughout the city," he said.
However, if off-leash areas aren't located in someone's neighbourhood and they can't walk to the facility, Gibson said they may feel their interests are not being represented.
In the summer, a West End resident asked city council to create an off-leash area in Grimston Park. A couple living in the uptown recently asked council to create an off-leash area in Moody Park.
Gibson said staff believes it's time to get an overall understanding of the city's needs for off-leash areas, rather than deal with requests one-off. The city's plan is to consider the issue comprehensively, reconfirm the city's policy regarding off-leash areas, and identify any gaps that may exist.
Gibson said some of the recommendations that have come from the community may be exactly what's needed, but the city needs to ensure the community has input. He said the city doesn't want to shortchange the process by not allowing people to have input into future changes.
"We just need to get those on the table and come up with a comprehensive program," he said.
Staff hopes to go out to the community to discuss off-leash dog areas with the community in January 2013.
