Pismo Beach’s long quest to install a local dog park in the city has been stalled yet again.
On May 17, the City Council withdrew its appeal of the local Planning Commission’s rejection of a proposed dog park in a large grassy area of Spyglass Park. The City Council identified developing a dog park at the site during its annual goal-setting meeting in February.
But the Planning Commission rejected the city’s request for a coastal development permit to build the dog park, saying that the project would shrink parking availability and that it wasn’t consistent with the Spyglass Park neighborhood.
As a result, the City Council appealed the commission’s decision on May 5. But frequent stumbling blocks and concerns from neighborhood residents prompted the council to rescind the appeal.
“Mayor Pro Tem [Mary-Ann Reiss] and I have been on the council a long time. We have struggled to find a location for the dog park,” Mayor Ed Waage said at the May 17 meeting. “Generally, we don’t have a lot of space for dog parks. We’ve been looking for options and every time we propose something, it’s been very hard to make it work.”
A resident who lives near Spyglass Park brought up the issue of space during public comment and supported withdrawing the City Council appeal.
“I, myself, have a small dog and, unfortunately, a small backyard. So, I’m aware of the need to have large areas that dogs can cover,” the resident said. “Ten thousand square feet for a dog park is simply not enough. If you were to build this, it would immediately become the region’s smallest dog park.”
The City Council also discussed bringing the proposed project to the Parks, Recreation, and Beautification Commission (PRBC) to identify other locations for a dog park. But fatigue from the city’s history of zeroing in on different potential places and still having the project not work out deterred most of the council from doing so.
However, Councilmember Marcia Guthrie stepped in to advocate for PRBC intervention. She referenced her time on the PRBC in 2010 when the commission was faced with another failed dog park project.
“We went to every single park; we found a location on Shell Beach Road; we had the local vet working on it; we had his contacts with Cal Poly testing the soil to make sure it would be an appropriate place for a dog park,” Guthrie said.
After the then PRBC recommended the Shell Beach Road location, the City Council at the time tried to discuss it at a meeting but received no input from members of the public. Guthrie said no one attended the meeting or wrote in letters. The City Council then postponed the discussion to give the public a chance to weigh in.
“After a month or so … there was one letter, and that was it.” Guthrie recollected. “So, there was a location found and it was ideal, and I was a part of that. There are areas in Pismo, and I think the PRBC should be able to look at it again.”
She added that in spite of the city issuing costly violation tickets to people for letting their dogs off leashes, the council refuses to study places where those dogs could legally run.
The result was a unanimous vote approving the appeal withdrawal and a consensus to schedule a discussion about whether the PRBC should review project locations or table it altogether. The City Council will confer on the latter at its next meeting on June 6. Δ
This article appears in May 18-28, 2023.