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Doggies (and their owners) will have to find another
place to play for a while — if they can. Photo by Angie
Hargot |
It is a sun-drenched Monday afternoon in
South Pointe Park. Several folks are milling about, some ducking
into the few spots of shade the palms here provide. Tourists
snap pictures of darting speedboats; a scruffy young man sits on
the rocks absorbing a paltry breeze. Until a school bus full of
prepubescent after-schoolers arrives, the park is mostly
occupied by another kind of patron — the sort that leads their
owners around by a taut leash.
In the
distance, a woman strips down to her bikini, tiptoeing about on
the rocks as her black Lab’s head happily pokes around above the
surf, mostly concerned with another four-legged patron in the
vicinity. This stocky little pup is learning to swim — his owner
is training him to jump into the waves when called.
These
patrons — and their owners — should live it up here while they
still can. Due to the scheduled revamp of South Pointe Park, on
July 9 this puppy playground will close until at least December
2008, a prospect that troubles more than a few dog owners.
With
only three Miami Beach park areas labeled as officially
dog-friendly — the other two are Flamingo Park at 999 11th
Street and Pine Tree Park at 45th Street and Pine Tree Drive—
some residents are concerned that losing a third of their dog
space for 18 months will be uncomfortable to say the least.
“It’s
going to be a huge mess,” said Lucia Greer, president of the
Responsible Dog Owners of Miami Beach, an organization that has
been instrumental in the interaction with the city about the
project’s effect on area dogs and owners.
“We’ve
been asking the city for a temporary dog area since September.
We were looking at the area between Washington and Second
[Street],” she said. “And we asked about the area of the marina
inlet in South Pointe [Park]. Commissioner [Matti] Bower is
helping us. There are so many doggies, we don’t want to see the
streets filled with poop and dogs off their leashes.”
Kevin
Smith, director of Miami Beach’s Parks and Recreation
Department, says dog owners may just have to use those other
parks. “Owners have other options,” Smith said, referring to
Flamingo and Pine Tree parks. “Those are the Bark Parks — the
best place to take dogs off of their leashes. Those are secured
areas, fenced in and safe from cars.”
As for
allowing a temporary bark park in the city-owned green space at
Second and Washington: “We’re looking at putting bag dispensers
there, and looking to accommodate owners,” he said, but wouldn’t
acknowledge any commitment. “We’re looking at options.”
But
according to Greer, “Flamingo Park is too small, and Pine Tree
Park is far away,” she said. “Maybe if the city said we could
make [the bark park in Flamingo] bigger.…”
Meanwhile, according to Smith, the city has a delicate
equilibrium it’s looking to preserve. “It’s a balance of
interests,” he said. “We have to consider the rest of park
patrons,” who might not want to have a dog run up to them or
step in “dog feces,” he said.
But the
voice of local dog owners is hard to ignore. Greer and other
members of the Beach dog owner constituency have been hard at
work since the park project’s conception, convincing planners to
make the new and improved South Pointe Park friendly to the
average 70 to 100 dogs a day they say play there — a concept the
original plans did not include.
At the
project’s first community design workshop on April 7,, 2005,
about 70 people filed into the spa at the Murano at Portofino
building, but only two dog-related questions and comments
resulted from that meeting.
However,
so many dog-related questions came out of the second community
workshop, held June 2, 2005, that Capital Improvement Project
planners were forced to reconsider the original scope of the
park to accommodate dogs.
Greer
and about 80 other dog advocates wearing paw-shaped stickers put
together a petition to include dog amenities in the park designs
and collected about 400 signatures, she says. The activists
presented Commissioner Saul Gross with the petition at the final
community workshop, and according to Greer, he has been
dedicated to the cause ever since.
“As the
dog issues discussion took some time, George Chartrand, Miami
Beach [CIP director] called for consensus on the park design
improvements … with the following issues to be resolved … [to]
accommodate dogs in the park through a range of options without
having to resort to a fenced enclosure,” now reads the city’s
final Basis of Design Report for the project.
And
accommodate dogs the plans surely do. The new $22.3 million park
is slated to include water baths, an area where dogs will be
permitted to frolic off-leash and possibly even an official dog
beach where they can unabashedly jump in, as opposed to the
impromptu paddling that now exists.
“When
the park is finished, it will be great, as the designers did
think of dogs,” agreed Gerald Posner, president of the South of
Fifth Neighborhood Association. “But the 18 months (minimum) of
construction, it won't be so easy for dog owners. I don't have a
dog myself, but many of my best friends do, and I know they have
been trying hard to secure some spots for their dogs to play
while the park is closed. Sanitary conditions won't be a problem
for responsible dog owners, but there are already plenty who are
not responsible, and this is a continuing problem south of
Fifth.”
By all accounts the new park will be dog-friendly, but it’s the
meantime that’s the problem. And dog activists are getting a
mixed response.
“The
city manager’s staff has denied our request for the temporary
dog park between the Government Cut and Apogee for the second
time. I just spoke to Commissioner Bower and she is placing our
request for a temporary dog-friendly area on the commission's
agenda for the July 11 meeting,” Greer said. “Our dogs, and the
owners, in South Pointe and limiting neighborhoods are going to
be homeless as of July 9 if the commission doesn't do
something.”
Greer says that in light of the park’s impending closure and the
troubles it will cause for dog owners and non-owners alike, she
and her organization asked Bower and City Manager Jorge Gonzalez
for a temporary dog area.
According to Greer, in an e-mail dated Sept. 7, 2006, Bower was
asked for help with a host of dog-owner concerns; the triangular
area east of the marina before the inlet, in front of the Apogee
sales office, was suggested as an alternate dog-friendly area.
Greer
says it was Gonzalez’s staff that offered up the area on
Washington Avenue and Second Street, and that the city even
agreed to fence in the area to protect dogs from traffic.
But then
on June 18, the city rescinded its offer. “We met with our city
liaison and asked her about the status of the temporary [dog
friendly area] offered to us. She informed us that the city has
on agenda, a [project] for the park on Washington Avenue and
Second Street, which means that this park will be under
construction in the future; therefore we wouldn’t be able to use
it when this happens and that the city will not fence the park,”
Greer said, adding that they were also denied an enlargement of
the bark park in Pine Tree Park.
Gonzalez
could not be reached for comment by early deadline.
Bower
has placed the alternative dog-friendly area item on the
schedule for discussion at the July 11 City Commission meeting.
Comments? E-mail
angie@miamisunpost.com. |
