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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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No new dog park at Upriver: Spokane Park Board approves investments near downtown instead

Chris McLaughlin sits in the shade with her dogs, Sunny and Clancy, and feeds them treats in this October 2022 at the dog park behind Mullan Road Elementary on Spokane’s South Hill. A 2-acre facility is planned on the site, but now Park officials are turning their attention from a new facility at Upriver to improvements at an existing High Bridge dog park in the Peaceful Valley neighborhood.  (Jesse Tinsley/The Spokesman-Review)
By Kip Hill kiph@spokesman.com(509) 459-5429

The long chase for a replacement dog park for one displaced by construction of a new South Hill middle school took another turn Thursday.

The Spokane Park Board voted unanimously to abandon plans for a facility off Upriver Drive. The city will instead use money provided by Spokane Public Schools to improve an existing dog park in High Bridge Park, near the confluence of Latah Creek and the Spokane River.

Park officials told board members improving an existing park was preferable to trying to find a new site to which neighbors wouldn’t object.

“We haven’t found that magic bullet yet,” Nick Hamad, planning and development manager for Spokane Parks, said. “Everywhere we go, we run into neighbors who are adjacent to these sites that are vehemently opposed to it.”

That happened most recently at Upriver, where officials planned to carve out a 7- to 9 -acre plot for dogs to play. The Park Board approved that location in May, despite vocal opposition from those living in nearby homes – many of them county residents – who raised concerns about noise, traffic, public safety and environmental disruption.

Those same residents provided a letter of support Thursday to abandon Upriver.

City Councilman Jonathan Bingle said he initially wanted the dog park in his district, the northeast part of town, but argued the board should listen to those living nearby who said they didn’t want it in their backyard.

“I will continue to try to find a site for a dog park in the northeast, because I want us to have it,” Bingle said.

Other members of the board said they wanted to make sure that residents near the High Bridge park, which has been operating as an off-leash area since 2011 and is currently overseen by SpokAnimal, would support improvement there, considering sites on the South Hill and now northeast Spokane had been rejected over neighbor concerns.

“I’d like to have the neighborhood actually ask to have this built within their neighborhood,” Park Board President Bob Anderson said.

William Hagy, chair of the West Hills Neighborhood Council that borders the existing park off Riverside Avenue and A Street, said his neighborhood supported the project by potentially bringing in more people and discouraging illegal dumping and fire hazards in the area.

“There’s not any opposition to the dog park that’s in existence,” Hagy said. “I think there’d be a tremendous amount of support from our constituents for improvements.”

Some users of the unofficial South Hill dog park, displaced by construction of the Carla Peperzak Middle School, encouraged the board to consider placing a dog park on top of an existing city landfill south of the site. Hamad said engineering experts had not given the go-ahead to allow that yet, but pursuing improvements at High Bridge Park wouldn’t prevent the city from exploring the opportunity in the future.

The city also plans to build a park that’s a little less than 2 acres at the corner of 63rd Avenue and Regal Street, just east of Mullan Road Elementary.

Hamad said design work would begin immediately on improvements at High Bridge, which includes gated areas for small and large dogs, a gazebo and unimproved trails leading up a cliff face toward South Government Way. The district has delayed putting in play fields at the new middle school while a final dog park decision is made.