Dog Park Proposed in Orange Beach

Fenced area would allow pet owners to let their dogs run free

Published By Mobile Press Register
Thursday, February 01, 2007
By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter

ORANGE BEACH -- With a dearth of places to legally take dogs on Baldwin's beaches, city officials here are pondering a park dedicated to man's best friend.

At the City Council meeting Monday, Phillip West, the city's coastal resources manager, said it would cost about $35,000 to create a fenced park for dogs on municipal property off Alabama 161.

The triangular, 2.25-acre plot West proposed for the park runs along the southern edge of the City Hall complex and would be linked to the Back Country Trail.

According to a proposal West presented to city officials, the park would include an acre of space at its center sodded with Bermuda grass surrounded by existing pine trees and clusters of sand oak.

Smaller trees and brush would be cleared out and replaced with centipede grass. The conceptual plan also accounts for sprinklers and water pipes and a water fountain for canines as well as benches and signage.

West said that some of the costs he calculated could be lessened if city employees in the Public Works Department could do some of the needed work, like clearing, hauling and landscaping.

City Councilwoman Tracy Holiday said that while the notion of a park where pet owners could turn their dogs loose in a fenced area had surfaced before, city officials recently began to reconsider it. She and West met with officials from the Alabama Gulf State Park, where pets are not allowed, and the Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge -- which banned dogs from its beaches and trails last year as part of its new management plan -- to figure out where dogs were welcome.

"They want to do a brochure and basically when we looked at it should have basically just said no' because it was no pets on the beach, no pets on the wildlife refuge, no pets in the state park,'" Holiday said. "It pretty much said, No, you can't take your pet anywhere. Just leave it in your condo.'"

Mayor Pete Blalock said he's regularly asked by pet owners, both local and visiting, about where they can take their dogs.

"There's no place dogs can be let loose," he said.

While dogs are allowed on the city's Back Country Trail, they must be leashed, city officials said. All of the public beaches in town are owned and managed by the state park and therefore don't allow dogs.

The proposed space behind City Hall may not provide the ideal location or layout, but it will be cheap because no parking lot is needed with plenty of spaces available behind City Hall, and many of the materials can be moved if a better location comes up, City Administrator Jeff Moon said.

"You can reuse the fence somewhere else," Moon said. "There won't be a lot lost except maybe the sodding."

Sod is expected to be the largest cost at $10,000 for an acre of grass, according to West's proposal. Other substantial costs include 1,100 linear feet of 4-foot-tall vinyl-coated chain link fencing at about $7,660, and $6,750 for grubbing and hauling.

Long-term, Holiday said, the Canal Road tract that is currently home to the city's sewage-treatment plant could be used once the planned plant is built south of the current site. That would free up the land south of City Hall for a proposed civic center.

The mayor asked that the proposal be refined and more information be brought back to the council at its next work session, which is scheduled for Feb. 12.

"I don't want this to be dropped," Blalock said.