Spokane once again pitching a new dog park in Upriver area amid concerns about parking, safety

The Spokane Park Board will be asked once again Thursday to decide where the city’s newest dog park will go, this time with city officials recommending a site in the northeast part of town along Upriver Drive.

Spokane Parks & Recreation, along with Spokane Public Schools, is on a timeline to deliver a new place for pups to play after they signed an agreement last spring pledging to build a new dog park in time for the opening of a new middle school. The process hasn’t been easy, as neighbors of parks south of Interstate 90 have lobbied against plans that would have built facilities in or near Underhill Park in the East Central Neighborhood and Lincoln Park.

“This is just, in my mind, a little bit longer than what we would have hoped,” Spokane Parks Director Garrett Jones said Tuesday. “But still, at the end of the day, it’s a good process.”

Neighbors of the proposed Upriver Park location wrote to parks officials, saying they were not directly contacted before plans were proposed to decision-makers and that increased use of the space would add to parking, safety and public health concerns along the busy stretch of road between the popular climbing rocks of Minnehaha and Boulder Beach. A cluster of homes along Upriver Lane is located in Spokane County, as the bounds of the property the city is considering for the park comprise the northeastern edge of the city limits.

Jeanne and Leni Selvaggio have lived in one of those homes off Upriver Lane for more than 30 years, and said they learned about the dog park proposal after a KXLY-TV reporter came and started knocking on doors last week.

“We already have a huge dog park, but we keep them on leashes,” Jeanne Selvaggio said, saying the area attracts deer, coyote and predatory birds such as owls that would be displaced by a dog park.

Leni Selvaggio worried about traffic on Upriver Drive, which is already a headache during the summer, and the gunfire of the Spokane Police Academy across the river frightening dogs and visitors to the proposed park.

“We get the impression that they’re just getting out the rubber stamp for this,” he said. “We think that’s the wrong decision.”

Jones said he intended to meet with neighbors Wednesday afternoon, and that he believed their concerns could be solved both by the design of the park as well as planned revisions to two Beacon Hill trailheads made possible, in part, by a state recreation grant.

“This is part of a bigger picture,” Jones said of the dog park, adding that the funding would include adding pedestrian improvements, parking and a beacon allowing pedestrians to cross Upriver Drive to reach the Centennial Trail and the Spokane River. He noted that the Minnehaha Neighborhood Council and mountain biking groups that use existing trails in the area have given their approval to the project, which will not interrupt climbing and mountain biking in the area.

Spokane City Councilman Jonathan Bingle said he appreciated the concerns of the neighbors, but also noted the difficulty of finding an acceptable spot for a dog park that was promised by the city to replace the displaced one on the South Hill.

“For whatever reason, we’ve had the darnedest time trying to find a spot for a dog park,” Bingle said. “It feels like the entire city wants the park, and then you get a small coordinated group of people that says, ‘But we don’t want it here.’”

The Parks Department had planned to settle on a location last fall, but faced significant pushback from residents near Underhill and Lincoln parks not to put a facility in their backyard. The Park Board voted down a proposal for a Lincoln Park location in October, which prompted the city to begin looking at locations in Spokane County and north of I-90, Nick Hamad, park planning and development manager, told Spokane Park Board members at a meeting last month.

“One of the things we recognize is that neither of these locations are near where the unofficial dog park was located,” Hamad said. “And that’s a big void.”

Users of the unofficial South Hill dog park praised the Upriver location at a presentation before the Spokane Park Board last month, saying such an amenity was needed by dog owners of all ages and that a new facility was needed before the opening of the new Carla Peperzak Middle School, slated for this fall.

Spokane Public Schools has agreed to build a smaller facility at the corner of 63rd Avenue and Regal Street, near Mullan Road Elementary School, that would be donated to Spokane Parks for use and maintenance to replace the park that was lost. The Park Board will be asked to accept that agreement as well at its regular meeting at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at City Hall, 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd.

Continued construction at the site will be a bit of a puzzle, Jones said, as schools leave a temporary location south of Mullan Elementary and 65th Avenue and workers pile usable top soil for ballfields at the site where the new, smaller dog park will be located.

“We’ll have to take a close look at the timing of the smaller dog park,” he said.

But the Selvaggios noted the distance of the proposed park from where current park users live, a good 20-minute drive from the South Hill. That’s assuming you’re going the speed limit, which they said is rare.

“Nix the dog park, and put in some more crosswalks,” Leni Selvaggio said.

Bingle said he, too, planned to meet with concerned neighbors before Thursday’s Park Board meeting in an attempt to ease concerns about the construction.

“It’s a great location for a dog park,” Bingle said. “I say that, personally, as someone wanting more destinations in the northeast part of town.”