Tim Ryan, tryan@wolfrivermedia.com
Plans for a Shawano dog park were put on pause Monday after a lengthy discussion with neighbors objecting to the city’s proposed location.
About a dozen people attended a special meeting of the city’s finance committee to speak against putting a dog park on a 6-acre portion of city-owned property along Sunset Boulevard, between Pick ‘N Save and Channel Trace.
The Shawano Park and Recreation Commission recommended the plan last week.
Among the complaints was that residents who moved into the neighborhood say they were told the property would someday be an extension of the Woodlawn Cemetery across the street.
“Now we’re going to live with a bunch of barking dogs in the backyard?” Roger Williams said. “That’s not going to be pretty. I, for one, will probably try to sell my place if I can to get out of there.”
Williams said the dog park was better suited to the industrial park or some other area away from residential properties. He said the park would also attract additional vehicle traffic.
“People aren’t going to walk from all over town to the dog park. They’re going to take their cars over there,” he said.
The proximity of the dog park to the existing cemetery was also a problem for some.
Miriam Gaschke said the noise from barking dogs could be a disruption for funeral services and even lead to confrontations.
“That one particular time that you can never get back is those last moments standing there, and to me that would be just devastation,” she said.
Residents also took issue with the idea that dog owners would necessarily clean up after their animals.
Sandi Bocik said many would just sit on the bench with their iPhones and not pay any attention to where their dogs run.
“I’m sure they’re not going to search out their dog’s feces versus other dogs’ feces,” she said.
Bocik said she is not opposed to dogs, but the dog park would ruin the peace and quiet of a retirement area.
“We bought these homes in order to retire,” she said. “How good is retirement when you’re constantly listening to dogs barking? Would you want to live there? Would this be your ideal spot for retirement?”
Alderman Woody Davis read a letter from the Willow Shores Condo Association objecting to “a smelly dog park with a cyclone fence around it in our backyard.”
The association also maintained it would lower property values.
Matt Hendricks, city park and recreation director, said eight or nine city-owned sites were studied before the commission settled on the Sunset Boulevard location.
He said the intent was to minimize residential impact, though there would be residential properties affected at each of the sites considered.
Hendricks said the pedestrian access to the proposed dog park and infrastructure already in place were two of the advantages of the Sunset Boulevard location.
He said the proposed park was located as far as possible from neighboring residential properties, would be surrounded by a 6-foot fence and would have a vegetative landscape berm to provide a visual and acoustic barrier.
Though the property had been designated for a future cemetery expansion, Hendricks said it could be 50 years before additional space is needed.
Alderperson Sandy Steinke, a committee member, said she had gotten a lot of calls in opposition to the location.
“They think it could be used for a higher and better use,” she said.
The committee voted unanimously to send the park proposal back to the commission for further review and consideration of possible options.
The Common Council, which convened immediately afterward, scratched the item from its agenda.
A survey seeking public input from residents on Shawano parks in 2013 cited a dog park as something many respondents wanted to see.
Dog park enthusiasts approached the Shawano County Board on two occasions in 2012 to establish the park at a clay borrows site on Rosebrook Road in the town of Belle Plaine. It was voted down twice over concerns about the proposed lease, the expense and what entity would be responsible for it.
The city included $50,000 in this year’s capital improvement projects budget for the park. The expected cost of the project at the Sunset Boulevard location was $49,794, with $28,793 of that going for a fence around the park.