Bar Harbor Dog Park Staked Out, But Neighbors Hope It Is Not A Done Deal

Planning expert interviewed about best practices, Parks and Rec meeting Monday

BAR HARBOR—Social media tensions about a potential dog park at the town’s athletic fields off Park Street are high and talk is fast and rapid. That conversation continues off the site as well in bars and homes and on Bar Harbor streets.

The question people asking?

“Are you for the dog park there?”

At a debate in Town Hill, most Town Council candidates answered that they weren’t in favor of a dog park at the town’s athletic fields.

Back in January, former Town Manager Kevin Sutherland drafted a memorandum of understanding with the Friends of Bar Harbor Dog Park. Since then (and before), representatives have met with the town’s Parks and Recreation Committee about the plan.

On May 10, we posted a story about the Parks and Recreation meeting where neighbors and others were against the park’s proposed location. Others spoke out in support. That story has images and details and a letter from the Hanscom family who have property abutting the area. The proposal has also been generating a lot of discussion in the Friends of the Bar Harbor Dog Park Facebook group and other local groups (and here) that are worried that Facebook comments are being removed from the discussion.

People against the project have expressed concern about maintenance needs that would fall on the town’s public works department, insurance, noise, the site’s proximity to housing and local lodging businesses, and Cromwell Brook. Proponents are in favor of a place in-town where dogs can socialize off leash and say that it also builds community among humans. More about those statements are in our previous story. The proposed site is staked out. There are trees that are also marked to potentially stay or come down. Abutters have posted videos of the site to help explain its proximity to residences and lodging as well as the basketball court and athletic fields.

Friends of the Bar Harbor Dog Park (the organizers of the potential park: Enoch Albert, Liz Cutler, Sharon Knopp, and Jeff Miller) gave a statement to the Bar Harbor Story in another previous article.

The original proposal had been to locate the dog park to a portion of the Glen Mary woods site. Neighbors objected, worrying about auditory disruptions and other changes. The group then proposed the site at the athletic fields.

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The Parks and Recreation Committee is scheduled to meet June 5 at 4:30 p.m. Though the meeting’s agenda is not yet posted, Chair John Kelly previously said on social media that the proposed dog park is up for discussion.

The next Parks and Recreation Committee meeting will be a site visit of the proposed dog park at the Athletic Field on Monday, June 5, at 4:30 pm.

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THE INTERVIEW

Below, is an interview with Susanne Paul, a planner who moved to Maine, but who worked in the Washington, DC area and has extensive history with dog park design.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some of my questions. From what I’ve heard, you’ve been involved in the creation of a dog park before, though you are not involved in the one proposed in Bar Harbor. Could you tell me a little about your past experience and expertise about dog park creation and/or design and/or location?

We moved to BHB two years ago for my husband’s job. Before we moved, I worked as an urban planner for almost a decade at Montgomery Parks, which is part of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC), a large park and planning agency for part of the Washington, DC metro area. Montgomery County has a population of over 1 million and the parks system has approximately 420 parks, almost 300 miles of trails, and ~40k acres of park land. Montgomery Parks is one of the top park agencies in the United States, winning six gold medals from the National Recreation and Parks Association, more than any other parks agency in the country.

I was a senior planner on a team of eight park planners that included landscape architects, urban designers, trail planners, and arborists. One of the projects I managed was a county-wide dog parks suitability study.

Every five years Montgomery Parks writes a Parks, Recreation and Open Space (PROS) Plan that analyzes service delivery and future needs for numerous park types and park facilities. The 2012 PROS Plan noted that there is a growing demand for dog parks, particularly in urban and urbanizing areas, and stated that the county needed at least ten new dog parks in the next decade. This study involved working with our staff in various divisions, including park managers, operations and maintenance staff, park police, and park development (engineers and landscape architects) to develop criteria for locating dog parks. There are no industry standards for locating dog parks. My team did site visits with the City of Baltimore parks department, Washington DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation, and I did site visits in Denver, CO, Philadelphia, and New York.

At the start of this study, Montgomery Parks already had six large, one-acre or more dog parks in outer suburban areas at regional or recreational parks (larger parks with many different facilities) and the study I managed was looking for smaller, walk-to dog park sites in urban or urbanizing parts of the county. The goal was to provide more off-leash opportunities for people living in townhouses or multi-family units that are less likely to have backyards. While the space and functioning of every park is contextual, we carefully developed five key criteria for siting dog parks. The study first created a study area (areas of residential density), then inventoried and studied all of the parks in that study area according to the five criteria. The list of sites was narrowed down and reviewed by a team of parks staff including park police, engineers, park managers, operations and maintenance staff, and planners in the planning department. Once the list was sufficiently reviewed, I did site visits, spent months doing public outreach to get public input, and then the sites were further narrowed down into a list of recommended sites. This process for this project and recommended sites then went in front of our board, and then the department selected a first site for implementation based on where the need was greatest.

I include all this to say that this was a very methodical process. Good planning and decision-making is all about the process. The M.O. in Montgomery County is data-driven decision-making, extensive public outreach and input, and extensive input from park police, operations, and maintenance staff so that we could understand what actually happens every day in the park, what the operating budget impact will be, etc. Working on this topic in a highly-populated area, as part of a large public agency that has a large annual budget is obviously different from a small town, but there are hopefully a lot of transferable lessons learned. One of the major benefits of creating solid criteria for locating these facilities up front in the process is that it cut down on push-back from staff, neighbors, community members, and decision-makers once the individual site was proposed and scoped out, because they had already participated in the process and the location made sense.

I think it’s also important to mention the benefits that dog parks can provide since it’s easy to just point out all of the complexities. While people tend to focus on them as spaces for off-leash exercise for dogs, they are really just as much for the people if not more – they can act as important community gathering spaces and create a sense a community where one might not already exist. Many people we spoke with discussed how dog parks are similar to playgrounds for parents with young kids – they make new friends there, friends that they see every morning for example, and become close to over time. When dog parks are working well it’s a place where people can create vital social connections.

Some research that I’ve found has said that off-leash dog parks have special design criteria can you speak to some of those components and best practices?

Sure. There are really two parts to this question: A) criteria for locating the facility, and B) the program for the facility.

Dog parks are much more complicated than people realize. It’s not just putting up a fence and a trash can. While there are no industry standards for dog parks, there are definitely best practices and our criteria and program attempted to make those best practices the minimum standard.

A – Locating sites – we used five criteria in locating our dog parks:

1. A minimum of 10,000 sqft of unconstrained land. Constraints include things like other park facilities in close proximity, streams and environmental constraints, and parking.

2. A minimum of 200’ from residences. We were also doing a skate park study at the same time and this criterion was used for the skate park study. We looked at the City of Portland Oregon’s comprehensive plan for skateboarding (yes! They have that!) and they did an acoustical study that demonstrated 200’ is a minimum distance beyond which the sound starts to dissipate. So, we used this for our dog park study. I will say that in some highly urban areas like downtown DC small dog parks might be right up against an apartment building, for example, but the context of those places is such that the noise and commotion is not a significant change from what is already happening in those locations.

3. A minimum of 65’ from a playground. We visited a number of parks in other cities and talked to their staff and landed on this number based on sites that we looked at in person. It’s important to keep a distance from young kids and dogs, even if the dogs are leashed, because little kids can sometimes run up to dogs, get nipped, and knocked down etc. The idea is to minimize conflict.

4. Parking. Some parking is needed depending on the site. Even in walk-to locations some folks will drive. If the parking is already shared with other facilities, then this has to be factored in – what is the impact on the parking of adding another park facility, etc.

5. CPTED. This stands for Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. We worked closely with our M-NCPPC Park Police force when locating and designing new park facilities. This is a design principal that essentially states that facilities should be visible and accessible – i.e. “eyes on the park (or facility)”

B. Facility Program. Dog parks should include, at a minimum:

• Approx 10k square feet, as flat as possible. (that was our target, could be smaller depending on the context)

• Fencing: 5 feet high or higher, strong and durable, buried at least six inches – able to withstand repeated weight of dogs jumping and running into the fence

• Double-gated entry system that swings closed automatically, with durable latching - a vestibule area that allows for dogs and owners to enter and leave without other dogs getting out.

• Surfacing: This is a huge debate in the parks and rec industry. Some places like engineered wood fiber, Denver uses sand, some like concrete with mounds of artificial turf, some like crushed stone. They all have pros and cons. The surface should ideally be washable and able to withstand digging and erosion from stormwater runoff. Unless the dog park is multiple acres, grass is almost always a terrible idea as it will quickly become mud.

• Small and large (or quiet and active) dog areas. This is not always included in dog parks but can greatly cut down on conflict.

• Seating.

• Shade. (This was a big deal in the DC area due to extreme heat)

• Water Source. For attaching a hose for cleaning and for dogs to drink.

• Dog waste bags, extra trash cans, frequent trash pick up.

• Signage with clear rules and regs.

• Lighting. Montgomery Parks’ parks were open dawn to dusk but the reality of dog parks there is that most people in the DC area work ~8:30am – 6pm jobs and people want to take their dogs out before and after work hours and so they used the park from 5:30am – 7:30am and 6pm – 9pm. Lighting was kind of a pandora’s box issue.

Some of the research that I’ve done speaks to creating parks that are centrally located and walkable from the downtown residences. Others have said that it’s important to take the location of nearby residences into account.  In your experience, how has these factors played into the creation of dog parks?

See above. You cannot underestimate the need to get the location right and the degree to which the additional activity, and sounds, and smells of dog parks can impact the neighbors.

In your experience is public input, the ability for the public to feel heard, and be part of the planning process integral to the creation and success of dog parks?

See above. Yes, always, without a doubt. Good planning and decision-making is all about the process. If you are creating a presumably new permanent facility, it is very important to take these things into account. For the study I managed, we did almost six months of direct public outreach.

Are there any specific geographical features (locations in watersheds, near streams, near athletic fields like in our case) important to a dog park’s location?

Yes. On principle, we did not build dog parks in a stream buffer or even close to the stream buffer due to the concentration and volume of urine and feces that the dog parks create, and the problems that fences can create in floods. We also tried to stay away from trees due to the compaction of critical root zones and the impact of concentrated urine on the trees. It’s important to think about any site in the context of what is around it, how those spaces are used at different times of day and year, parking, etc. See above for the criteria.

Some of the recent discussion, particularly online, has been focused around best management practices, community preferences, and the maintenance and development of parks as well as questions about insurance, location to residences and lodging. Some communities have had public input webpages and polls as well as press releases and flyers soliciting public opinion. Do you think that those measures are helpful or necessary?

Yes, always. Ideally outreach and thinking around the desire for facilities like this would be part of a comprehensive plan – people would say and agree “we really need a dog park!”, and then approach to locating them might be part a strategic plan for parks and recreation, but there are budget realities to being able to conduct that process and limited staff capacity since BHB does not have a parks department.

Some cities and counties require those interested in having a dog park to create a 501c3 friends-of group that will take on some of the responsibility to improve and maintain the dog parks. Washington, DC, for example, requires an MOU signed annually, that states roles and responsibilities between DCDPR and the friends-of group.

Is there a recommended size for a park? A recommended buffer from residential properties? Is it recommended for the site to be flat? Or other geological and wildlife considerations? Are there recommendations for staffing, use permits? Are there standard noise mitigation tools used when sites are close to residences? .

See above. Dog parks can range from ~5,000 square feet to multiple acres. Yes to flat for a lot of reasons. If your surface material is crushed stone, for example, it will erode during storms and create lots of little canyons in the surface – think of the ANP carriage roads after major storm events – that have to be smoothed out and refinished. Dog parks should be considered impervious surfaces - there should be some kind of stormwater runoff mitigation around the facility – like swales or other on-site capture that helps prevent the runoff and contamination from getting into streams.

There is really nothing you can do to prevent noise from traveling except distance. I don’t think wildlife is a huge concern. As far as staffing goes, some may consider it a resource diverter to staff a dog park. Typically rules and regs are carefully developed with the police input and clearly posted, then it’s up to the users to follow the rules. There is a lot of user enforcement that happens – for better or worse.

I can’t stress enough that dog parks can create a lot of conflict, so it’s important to review with police etc. about what kinds of situations may develop. Some communities create a structure where you have to register and pay a fee to use the dog park and then you get a special tag or something visible that shows you’re allowed to use that space, and the gate has a key code, but I have not seen those models work well over time – except perhaps in places where gated communities are common – plus given that facilities in BHB must serve a vastly larger out-of-town population for part of the year, that approach doesn’t seem feasible.

Updated with confirmation of the next meeting.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

A few of our past stories.

https://barharborstory.substack.com/p/potential-dog-park-location-continues

https://barharborstory.com/2023/05/25/tips-on-visiting-acadia-on-memorial-day-weekend/

https://barharborstory.com/2022/12/06/dog-park-plan-waits-for-updated-agreement/

https://barharborstory.com/2022/12/22/dog-park-might-not-be-mission-impawssible/

Some of Paul’s resources.

Dog Parks Suitability Study

Montgomery County Suitability Study presentation

County cable segment on the project: 

This is a link to see the June 13, 2019 presentation (Paul’s presentation begins at 7:30:47): https://mncppc.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=7&clip_id=2047

TO CONTACT THE PARKS AND RECREATION COMMITTEE AND TOWN COUNCIL:

Emails supporting or indicating a lack of support can be addressed to the following members of the Parks and Recreation Committee, the town’s public works director and the town council (all of these emails are public and on the website and meant for public comments and concerns about this and other town business):

• John Kelly: jkelly0709@gmail.com

• Jeff Dobbs: jdobbs@jeffdobbs.com

• Greg Veilleux: vfamilymdi@gmail.com

• Desiree Sirois: desiree.sirois@mdirss.org

• Bob Huff: operations@mdiymca.org

• Bethany Leavitt: pwdirector@barharbormaine.gov

• Town Council: council@barharbormaine.gov

The friends of the Bar Harbor Dog Park request that if supporters email, that they be cc’d at  barharbordogpark@gmail.com

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