SCOTIA — Gregg Zeman doesn’t have a dog.
He wouldn’t want to subject it to living in a house with three cats.
But he grew up with one, he sees his neighbors walking their furry friends past his Washington Road home every night, and he knows those dogs would rather be off their leashes.
“We all have small village lots, and it’s not a lot of room for a dog to be a dog,” Zeman said.
Pretty soon, though, those dogs will have a place in the village to run, jump and play.
For the past year, Zeman has led a five-person committee of volunteers tasked with bringing a dog park to the village. This week, after seeing the committee’s plans, the village Board of Trustees approved $10,000 in funding for the park, which will be built on seven acres of land at the end of South Reynolds Street by the Mohawk River. The land is home to the Flint House village museum, a community garden and an underutilized field, said Zeman, a former village trustee.
The location was selected over two other options: the old wastewater treatment plant at Washington Avenue and Schonowee Avenue and a section of Collins Park called the spoils area.
“It’s kind of like the park on the lower side of Mohawk Avenue,” he said, “so this would give those residents a destination to go to without hopping in their car to take their dog somewhere.”
Zeman, appointed to the Village Board in December 2013, lost his bid for election to a full term in November but continued to lead the committee.
“Once we got the committee together, and you kind of see the passion of the dog owners wanting a dog park for the village, it was easy to go forward with it,” he said.
The 37,500-square-foot park will be enclosed with a 5-foot-tall chain-link fence and have a fenced off area within for dogs weighing less than 30 pounds “so the big dogs can’t eat the small dogs,” Mayor Kris Kastberg said.
“I think it’s a great thing,” he said. “The residents of our village have had to go to either Niskayuna or Guilderland if they want to use the dog park. We welcome dogs into Collins Park, but there’s always the issue of dogs not on a leash, so this is going to be a good opportunity for people who want to have their dogs run free.”
The park, to be built by village parks and public works crews, will also have water stations, a double-gated entrance and exit, and a Dogipot waste station already installed in front of the Flint House. The village will be responsible for maintaining the park, which Kastberg said will involve upkeep of the water stations and emptying the trash more often. The field is already mowed by village crews, he said.
“People already run their dogs down there,” he said, adding that the park would also be open to non-village residents. “I don’t think we’re going to get a big influx of people from outside Glenville, but I don’t see why we would turn other people away.”
Kastberg said unlicensed dogs will not be allowed in the park. Each year, park users will have to acquire a tag for their dog. It would be free for village residents and cost a nominal fee to non-village residents.
Construction is expected to begin in late summer or early fall, after village crews complete street-paving work and get through the busy park maintenance season, Kastberg said.
Meanwhile, in Glenville, long-discussed plans to construct a dog park at the corner of Van Buren and Swaggertown roads are also moving forward. The 32 acres of former farmland were willed to the town in 2007 by the late Mark Andersen with the wish that they be used as a dog park.
“We anticipate we’ll start work on it this summer,” town Supervisor Chris Koetzle said.
The five-acre park will be enclosed with a chain-link fence and have separate water stations for people and dogs, a bag station and trash bin. And as with Scotia’s park, dogs will have to be licensed. The Town Board still has to decide if non-Glenville residents would pay an additional fee, Koetzle said.
The town has budgeted $70,000 for the park’s construction, Koetzle said. Both the town and village dog parks will be funded with parkland funds, which the municipalities receive from developers in lieu of creating open space. |
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