After months of controversy surrounding a dog park in Ottawa's west end, a solution has been reached to divide the park in half. Residents have been at odds with one another since September when the city removed the gates at Garfield Park, after it was announced as a fully fenced-in off-leash dog park last summer. The idea turned out to be a mistake.
"Under a mixed-use designation you can't have a park be exclusive to one user or another and so the gates came off," said area councillor, Laine Johnson. After public consultation in the form of a survey, the city is now dividing the park in half with a fenced-in space for dogs on one side and an open space on the other. "There are people who don't want the park and don't like dogs, or they feel that they can't walk through the park," said dog owner, Karen Toupin.
In the survey, residents had two options to choose from. The first, leave the park as is without the gates and the second, split the park in half with dogs designated on one side. The majority chose the latter.
"I think it's creating another division in our community," said dog owner, Anastasia Machan. "I don't think we need that in our society right now." "The park is so popular that I think that's going to be too small an area, so it's disappointing," said another dog owner, Alan Bradshaw.
While some say the city doesn't have enough fenced-in spaces for dogs as it is, others want to see the park used for other things. "Very few resources have gone into doing anything .