Planned dog park meets howls

By Mike Trask

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009 | 2 a.m.

When the Henderson Parks and Recreation Department added amenities to a trailhead in the retirement community of Sun City Anthem, some neighbors complained that it would attract more traffic to their street.

Now, in another part of town, the city wants to add a dog park and an off-road bicycle track to the 60-acre Arroyo Grande Sports Complex.

And, yes, neighbors are complaining.

Residents of the gated Catalina Estates don’t welcome the noise, odors and general commotion they say will come from the other side of their block walls.

The city wants to spend $11 million on the park, including renovating trails and softball fields on the other side of the sprawling complex.

It’s the proposed dog park that really rattles Cindy Lake’s cage.

“I’m a dog lover,” she said, standing next to her pool and looking at the flood control detention basin that is set to become a 2.5-acre dog park. “I’ve never taken my dog to a dog park because I have a back yard.”

She and other neighbors, who bought their homes for about $500,000, say their back-yard barbecues will be spoiled by the smells and barking that accompany dog parks.

“They’ve ruined my life by proposing this,” she said.

Martine Jordan, another resident, says she’s worried, too, about more trash blowing up against her wall and the prospect of dog owners peering into her back yard.

“It’s just too close,” she said.

Lake, Jordan and their Catalina Estates neighbors are the newest voices in a growing opposition to dog parks. Across the country, proposed dog parks have riled the people who live closest to them. A New Jersey town spent $50,00 altering a dog park last year after a public outcry about morning noise. In Oakland, Calif., the hours of a $400,000 dog park were adjusted to accommodate neighbors who complained.

Henderson plans to start the project, which is still being designed, in May.

Later this month the project will be the subject of a public meeting.

“People have wanted a dog park over there,” said Kim Becker, a city spokeswoman. “We have worked to revamp the plans to try to make the people happy.”

Although the softball parks will remain lighted, the dog and bicycle parks will not be.

Becker noted the city has moved the dog park and the bike track to more than 150 feet from the nearest neighbors’ walls. Earlier plans called for a buffer of only 30 feet.

But even a 150-foot separation between the park additions and neighbors’ back walls is insufficient, says Lake, a real estate agent. She says her property values would be improved by most parks — but not one for animals.

“We pay almost $4,000 a year in taxes,” she wrote in a recent e-mail to city officials. “We paid $485,000 for our home that may be worth $375,000 today and zero if this project were ever to come to fruition.”

The project is being funded by the Southern Nevada Land Management Act, which funds municipal parks through the sale of Bureau of Land Management parcels.

Work on the four softball fields has begun and this week workers were removing the old grass.

Shade covers will be placed on bleachers, and netting will be placed next to the outfield fences to stop home run balls headed for windshields.

Neighbors seem to be OK with that. Lake said she enjoys the sound of ballgames in the summer. Dogs are allowed at the softball fields as long as they are leashed.