City Council is looking into giving local pups more off-leash places to play.
Councillor Mike Anthony tabled a unanimous motion on Monday calling for city staff to meet with North Bay and District Humane Society management to get the ball rolling on a potential second location dog park.
The Humane Society officially opened the city’s first park at Champlain Park on Premier Raod in June last year, the first of its kind within city limits.
Based on its success one year later, councillors want to open the gate for dogs in other parts of the city.
“The first dog park does seem to have gone quite well,” Anthony said on Monday. “The Humane Society took care of all the start-up costs, handled the operating costs and found a sponsor - all those sort of things.
“I understood that the Society has heard positive feedback from the first one, as well as comments that perhaps, if possible, it would be nice to have one at the other end of the city or something more central,” he added. “It's basically just to get us some information, it doesn’t actually bind us to proceed with a second dog park.”
Humane Society executive director Daryl Vaillancourt said they had originally intended to build at least three dog parks throughout the city, with Monday's motion helping bring that vision to life.
“We would love to have more than a couple off-leash dog parks in the city, but it’s one step at a time,” said Vaillancourt. “We look forward to working with the city to establish a second one, which we hope will be at a more central location.
“Without getting into specifics, we’re hoping to be in and around the area of Memorial Gardens,” he added.
After a successful fundraising and sponsorship campaign helped the Humane Society clear and construct the Champlain dog park at no cost to the city, Anthony is hoping his call to action has a similar impact.
The city provided the Champlain Park parcel of land in a generous lease agreement with the Humane Society and Bruman Construction Inc. did the bulk of construction work pro bono.
Vaillancourt estimated that the full cost of the first park could have reached $80,000 if they paid for the entire project. He is, however, just as confident that the same strong group of support will rally for round two.
“The people who support the work of the Humane Society and the organization in general are very passionate and dedicated people,” said Vaillancourt. “They’ve talked to us before about supporting not just dog parks, but in everything we do [...] This is just another project we feel confident they will step up for, once again.”
John Severino, the city’s managing director of community services, and his staff have been asked to report back to council in 90 days with an update and recommendation.
“If things go as I hope they do, we could see our second dog park ready to go this summer,” said Vaillancourt.
“We really need the folks at the city to work collaboratively with us because we’re ready to go,” he concluded. “We have the desire and we also have a preferred location - I can’t give details right now - but we really have a place that could be set up in short order.”
