Belmont Street Dog Park
The front page of today's Somerville Journal features a story by Auditi Guha about the lack of off-leash spaces in Somerville and some local dog owners who are interested in turning Belmont Park into a dog park ("Doggone It! City has no parks for pooches to play off-leash"). I'm not sure where, exactly, Belmont Park is located--it's not included among the list of parks and playgrounds on the City of Somerville website--but Strummer and I will be taking a walk along Belmont Street soon to see if we can meet Rocky and Shadow, the Somerville dogs featured in Guha's story.
It's unfortunate that the public information officer, Lucy Warsh, is quoted in the article as speaking of a need "to identify an adequate space that is acceptable for both residents as well as dog owners." Somerville dog owners are residents, so it?s not really an issue of satisfying the needs of two different groups, is it? Designated off-leash areas in fact serve both dog owners and those who prefer not to share their lives with dogs?far more equitably, I might add, than prohibiting dog owners from enjoying open space in the city with our dogs.
Cities all over America are coming up with creative ways to accommodate dog owners. In Massachusetts, Boston has the Charlesgate Dog Run in Back Bay and Dog Park in the North End. A pilot program in Boston Common allows dogs to be off-leash during designated hours. Brookline has initiated an off-leash pilot program, the Green Dog Program, which designates hours, seasonally, when dog owners may allow their dogs off-leash in twelve city parks. Cambridge has four off-leash areas. In Fort Washington Park and Dog Park dogs are allowed off-leash in the entire park. Fresh Pond and Danehy Park have designated off-leash areas.