Idea of dog park on Yachats’ ball field may start larger conversation on what to do with land

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

Mary Aebi and Carita Edson each have a pair of dogs that enjoy being off leash and playing with other canines.

But that can be a problem on the beaches and trails around Yachats.

So they’ve been approaching the city’s Parks and Commons Commission with a proposal to create a fenced dog park on portion of the former ball field to the west of the 501 Building.

“There’s a lot of dog owners in Yachats who we think would appreciate being able to have their dogs off-leash and yet not bother other dogs or owners who have their dogs leashed,” said Aebi. “And we think there’s also a lot of visitors who would like it and benefit too.”

But their idea is also raising anew the question of what should be done with the large piece of open space that once housed a ball field but is now a mostly unused field of grass, mud, molehills and the occasional mess left behind from owners who run their pets on the field but don’t pick up after them.

Aebi and Edson envision a small, fenced enclosure – possibly a half-acre — filled with wood chips near the east side of the property where it is more accessible to parking. They are researching dog parks elsewhere, construction, funding and maintenance issues – and seeking more people to help them develop the idea.

“We’re not looking at something that’s too large … but something that’s smaller and serves the community,” Aebi told YachatsNews.com.

The pair have twice brought the idea to the Parks and Commons Commission, which has cautiously told them to do the research and bring back a concrete proposal.

Commission members in December said they thought the idea had merit, but wanted much more information. They also realized the idea could lead to resuming the larger discussion – after years of just sitting there — of how to best use the largest city-owned open space inside Yachats.

“Is it a good use of a half-acre of the property we have?” Commission chair John Purcell asked the group in December. “Our goal is to determine the best use for that area that is accessible, affordable and achieves a community need.”

About the land

Laying between the Yachats Commons and the 501 Building on the east, the city’s land stretches from West Fourth Street on the south to the library and wastewater treatment plant on West Seventh Street to the north. Its westernmost edge consists of a spruce forest behind seven houses along Ocean View Drive. In the center is a large wetland and pond with a system of boardwalks.

A fenced children’s playground and enclosed pavilion sit on its south side. The former baseball field – now without a backstop and small bleachers – has about four acres of grass.

What few people know or notice, is that the city owns an undeveloped residential lot that contains a narrow trail leading from Ocean View Drive into the forest and wetlands. It was once viewed as the west entrance to the area, drawing people from the 804 Trail on Ocean View into the open space.

This summer the city of Yachats hopes to pave the muddy gravel road that runs from the Commons parking lot to Sixth Street near Yachats Community Presbyterian Church. Preliminary plans call for it to have two lanes, a sidewalk and parking spaces that would cut into the field a little.

Ideas of what to do with the area have been bouncing around for decades, starting with a plan developed in the 1990s. In 2004, a parks advisory board and the City Council commissioned a master plan.

But after discovering shortcomings in that plan — and new ideas from the community — the city held a held a series of meetings, workshops and design sessions between 2008 and 2010. The result is a formal, designed master plan for how the area should be developed – if there ever was enough money and momentum. Approved in 2011, it is now nine years old.

In recent years the city and others have added an electric car charging station, enclosed the pavilion, improved the playground and moved the skate park, which is now rarely used. But other than some basic maintenance, little in the way of big ideas has occurred since.

Dave Rieseck, developer of the Koho housing project on the south side of the Yachats River, is a landscape architect and served on the City Council from 2008-12. He helped lead the workshop process and did the plan’s formal drawings incorporating the community’s ideas.

One of the ideas back then was also for a dog park. But he said that idea fell farther down the list of priorities once the community was engaged.

“After all the other places there are for dogs, not that many people wanted to go forward with it,” Rieseck said. “It ended up not being as critical as we thought going into the process.”

Now, the Parks and Commons Commission is trying to see if that sentiment has changed.

Dogs, parks, kids and plans

Lots of communities have dog parks.

In Florence, population 8,300, the city and volunteers last year completed the restoration and expansion of a large dog park on 6.4 acres of land. It has three sections — a large, cleaned up forested area, a smaller enclosure with wood chips and then a third, smaller fenced area with grass.

Gresham, with a population of 110,000, has just one — a simple 30-yard by 60-yard fenced dog park tucked to the side of its main downtown city park.

One of the issues with the current idea in Yachats is that there has been little to no discussion among commissions and the City Council about proceeding with any development or different uses of the ball field area. The upcoming road project may spur some of that.

Students and their parents from the home-school group that meets at the nearby Presbyterian church approached the Parks and Commons Commission last year, asking if the city would agree to fence off a soccer field so they and others could play without the fear of stepping in dog poop or other trash. The commission said it was reluctant to fence off a soccer field and that the city didn’t have money for that anyway. There was also a request to restore and improve the baseball field.

But the city is also lagging in its spending on other capital improvement projects it approved last year. The planned $300,000 rebuilding of the Little Log Church this year and next has yet to get started; the expansion of the library is on hold for at least another year while the Library Commission reworks plans and finances.

Both of those are being paid for in part with the fast-growing amount of money the city collects from lodging taxes, a portion of which must be spent on infrastructure projects used by visitors.

Now what?

What, if anything, to do with the ball field has not been on the city’s or the City Council’s radar until the requests for the soccer field and dog park came up.

The council, consumed with other issues and some divisiveness, recently held a goal-setting session for 2020. Developing a plan for the Commons and surrounding area was one of 12 “tasks” listed under “Improve and maintain Yachats’ facilities.”

On Thursday, Purcell addressed the council on the dog park idea, asking if it was something it wanted the Parks and Commons Commission to further explore.

“We want to make sure that we don’t have the commission and citizens do a lot of work and then have the council say that’s not something we want to do,” Purcell said.

Council members told Purcell to have the commission and dog park proponents keep working on the idea, urged him to have a community meeting to gather ideas and feedback, get estimates for development and maintenance costs, and keep them posted along the way.

But Councilor Jim Tooke also issued the commission and council a warning.

“I’ve been here five years and rarely have I seen someone on the ball field,” Tooke said. “Peoples’ frustration with the city is that the council makes all these plans and nothing ever happens.”