Encino : Agreement Reached on Off-Leash Dog Site

After a year of negotiations among residents, environmentalists, dog lovers and the city, ground will be broken for Los Angeles’ largest off-leash dog exercise area in early January, parks officials said.

To be located at the corner of White Oak Avenue and Victory Boulevard inside Sepulveda Basin, the 9.7-acre park will be the third such facility for dogs in the city and will cost around $300,000 to build, said officials from the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

The other two dog parks are a 3.7-acre commons tucked inside a canyon off Mulholland Drive in Studio City, and a one-acre pilot project on a hill at Silver Lake Recreation Center.

“We’ll have groundbreaking right around the first of the year, with completion scheduled before the end of the year,” said Jim Andervich, assistant general manager of the parks department’s San Fernando Valley division.

The project will be paid for by a combination of voter-approved park improvement funds and contributions from a company identified by city officials only as “a major pet food company.” The company is expected to contribute about $30,000 in exchange for name recognition at the park.

The location of the park was chosen after months of sparring among ardent dog owners, environmentalists and city officials. The city earlier in the year suggested a location sandwiched between a day-care center and the National Guard Armory on Victory Boulevard.

But environmentalists said that barking dogs and traffic brought by the park would disturb waterfowl roosting in the old cornfields just across the Los Angeles River.

After several meetings, city parks officials agreed to build the park on a vacant dirt lot at White Oak and Victory.

The park will include a fenced, five-acre off-leash dog exercise area skirted by a 50-foot buffer zone of grass and shrubbery. It will also include a one-acre parking lot and about four acres of picnic areas and open fields.