This is a temporary site to help us collect and share all manner of information and opinions related to adding a city-approved dog park as part of the Hardy Park and Recreation Center renovation.
The interminable survey is finally closed, results have been tallied, duplicates have been removed, and a final anonymized report of results is at last available for review and download. You'll also find anticipated next steps described in the last section of the results.
Final results are complete and published. Note that we have anonymized the results, but left all free text as it was entered by the survey respondents.
View and/or Download the PDFWe're just some Foxhall Village residents who happen to have a dog and who were encouraged to advance a decision as to whether or not the neighborhood should add a dog park. Feeling the love of a democratic process, we are just trying to give neighbors who would be affected a medium to share opinions and insights. At this time we are just maintaining the survey and this simple site, but if the decision is made to create a dog park, we may evolve to formalize a group of volunteers to guide its creation and to keep it tidy and non-disturbing to all neighbors. It's easy to want a dog park, but it will take a concerted effort by volunteers to make it successful and harmonious with other elements of Hardy Park and the surrounding neighborhood.
We've scoured the DC DPR resources to find any official-looking resources that might help eliminate ambiguity or confusion. We are always looking for more resources, so if anyone knows of any missing DC resources, by all means let us know.
Meanwhle, here are a few helpful goodies:
And here are some great documents we found on DC's sites, but for the life of us we cannot relocate. We'll keep looking for where we found them, but meanwhile, there is pure gold in these relatively dry documents. For example, a dog park need not be 10,000 square feet in size. As a matter of fact it is far from it. According to 733 Dog Parks: Suite Guidelines and Specifications: "733.1 A dog park shall be no less than five thousand square feet (5,000 sq. ft.) in area where feasible, unless parkland availability in certain neighborhoods precludes meeting this guideline. Triangle parks or other areas of less than five thousand square feet (5,000 sq. ft.) may be considered."
Gotta love this one, too: "735.9 A handler shall not have more than three (3) dogs in a dog park at any one time." Hmmm, how many times have I seen that rule broken at some local parks?
Here is a nice resource we derived from information gathered from DPR as well as just some good old-fashioned googling. It is an interactive map of the dog parks in DC. If you would like, you can view the source Google Sheet.
If you have never used Google My Maps before, here is a short YouTube video that shows you how you can use it. This is all very meta!
Feel free to reach out for whatever reason.
202-657-3246