Compromise Site Weighed for Park

Dogged by criticism from residents and others opposed to building an off-leash canine exercise area at a site off Victory Boulevard in Sepulveda Basin, Los Angeles parks officials agreed this week to consider an alternative location for the park at a site off White Oak Avenue.

Residents opposed the Department of Recreation and Parks’ first choice for the park, which would be only the third such facility in Los Angeles. That site was sandwiched between a day-care center for the elderly and a National Guard facility, but would have displaced a farmers’ market held on Sundays. Others expressed concern that the site was too close to the banks of the Los Angeles River, where migratory waterfowl roost and forage.

The department had defended the spot as the only location acceptable to an unnamed corporate sponsor, which has agreed to contribute about $30,000 toward construction of the park.

In November, the department rejected a site proposed by residents near the Woodley Lakes Golf Course club house, and residents feared no compromise could be reached. But at a meeting called by the parks department on Monday, officials were receptive to a new suggestion to build the park on a vacant, dirt lot on White Oak Avenue near Victory Boulevard.

“It was a very positive meeting,” said Eric Rose, a spokesman for Councilwoman Laura Chick, in whose district the park would be built. “What the parks department is saying is that, before going full steam ahead with the park, they’re willing to look at other sites.”

The new proposed area is bordered on the south by the Los Angeles River, and by residences on the north and west. Parks officials will take interested people on a tour of the new site on at 9 a.m. Friday. The group will meet at the corner of White Oak Avenue and Victory Boulevard.