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Proposed Dog Free Locations in the Madison Park System
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The changes to MGO 8.19 (including the creation of MGO 8.195), and corresponding changes to MGO 23.32 and 1.08, provide the opportunity for the Board of Park Commissioners to designate dog free locations in the Madison park system. This opportunity was first identified in the Statement of Policy and Guidelines for On-Leash Dog Access to the Madison Park System (approved October 2, 2019, Legistar 57578). During the public input process, staff heard from many members of the public who asked for park locations where dogs would be prohibited. These requests were made for a variety of reasons ranging from cultural reasons, to a bad experience, to simply not liking dogs. The methodology for determining which locations should be dog free is described below.
Staff completed an analytical process to determine a group of parks to propose as dog free parks. Some dog free parks were selected due to their size, and their use. For example, if they are so small as to mostly be a footprint of a playground, such as Morrison, Stevens Street and Sheridan Triangle Parks. Other parks are mostly beach, such as BB Clarke and Hudson Parks, which also contains burial mounds. Some larger parks were also selected to allow people wishing to enjoy an active use park without encountering a dog in the park.
Staff sought to geographically distribute the dog free parks so that most residents are within a one-mile radius of a dog free park location. The attached list of proposed dog free locations includes golf courses (during the golf season) and Forest Hill Cemetery. Overall, Parks staff suggests 33 neighborhood and mini parks for dog free status. This amounts to about 118 acres of mini and neighborhood parkland. In addition, the conservation parks represent about 1,821 acres of additional dog free parks. With the golf courses and Forest Hills the total acres is about 2,784.