San Fernando Valley : Sepulveda Basin Dog Park Planned

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

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

The two other 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 major pet food company. The company is expected to contribute about $30,000 in exchange for displaying its name at the park.

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.