Woof Pack Hopeful On Kaiaka Bay Dog Park
By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS | Share
Del.icio.usRecent advances in the Kaiaka Bay Beach Park dog park proposal have North Shore residents wagging their tails, though no timeline is set yet for construction.
Kyoko Nakayama, creator of North Shore Woof Pack (http://www.nswoofpack.org) and driving force behind the project, is happy with the feedback she has gotten thus far from the city and the community.
“I would say that the public response has been about 99 percent positive,“she said. She and other volunteers combed the area earlier this year, gathering nearly 400 signatures in support of the dog park, which is estimated to cost $60,000 and cover 1.5 acres of city land. The petition was given to the city parks department in February, and the proposal brought before North Shore Neighborhood Board soon after.
“I think if we had kept going we could have gotten thousands of signatures because of the amount of people who have and love dogs on the North Shore,” Nakayama added.
Neighborhood board chairman Michael Lyons believes the dog park would be a nice addition to the community. “The board voted overwhelmingly for it,” he said. “There was only one negative vote among us, but Nakayama and others went back and amended their plans to accommodate that person’s concerns.”
Nakayama noted that they tried to address concerns residents raised, such as noise. “We did our best to propose this park for the best location, but as with any community project it’s impossible to make everyone happy.”
“If you have a pack of 50 dogs, then yes, the neighbors might get annoyed by the dogs (regarding noise),” Lyons said. “But take Mililani and Hawaii Kai, for example. Their dog parks rarely have more than three or four dogs present at a time.”
Woof Pack awaits IRS approval for its tax-exempt status, and it plans to submit a new park design soon.
Lyons hopes to see construction start by the end of the year.“Last I heard, they’re waiting on funding issues to be resolved with the city,” he said. “They have to approve these projects for a six-year projection on future costs, so hopefully it will work out and the city will set this project in motion soon.”
E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS
Most Recent Comment(s):
