New dog park in Vacaville would cost $95,000

Originally published in the Daily Republic on January 7, 2015 By Ryan McCarthy.

Converting land at Centennial Park into an interim dog park is estimated to cost $95,000 and would be funded through park and recreation development impact fees, a report to the Community Services Commission stated.
The Vacaville panel meets Wednesday to take up the proposal to add a second dog park in the city. The only current dog park is located in Lagoon Valley Park and opened in 2003, the report noted.
“It continues to serve the public very well, but residents have increasingly requested the provision of additional, larger and more centrally located dog parks,” park planner Hew Hesterman wrote.
Some residents have taken to using fenced ball fields and other park land to exercise their dogs in violation of the city’s leash law, Hesterman added.
The services commission formed a dog park committee last February to review the possibility of another dog park in Vacaville. The proposed site covers 1.2 acres while the Lagoon Valley Park covers about one-half an acre.
“The city doesn’t have enough funding to build a more formal, permanent dog park,” Hesterman said Tuesday. “This is the best idea we’ve been able to come up with.”
Hesterman said that the Centennial site would be very basic and the cost estimate does not include trees or grass.
“The dogs tend to be very tough on the turf,” he said.
The dog park at Centennial would be located where mini soccer fields were developed in the late 1990s and used for several years before the synthetic turf wore out and holes and flaps in the fabric created safety concerns, Hesterman stated.
The gates were locked in 2006 to prevent injuries and the Vacaville city staff concluded the cost of replacing the synthetic turf would be better spent on larger, natural turf fields, the report noted. The Vacaville Police Department was allowed in 2008 to temporarily use the site.
City staff met with K-9 officers in September to advise them of plans for the dog park at Centennial.
The site is planned for a full-size soccer field but money is not available for the fields, Hesterman said.
“That is probably so far in the future that this would be a dog park for a number of years,” he said.
Commissioners meeting Wednesday will also consider a Little League request to install a scoreboard at Arlington Park.
They meet at 7 p.m. in the City Council chamber at 650 Merchant St.