“06880” political correspondent John H. Palmer writes:
Should Winslow Park include a fenced-in dog area?
Or should it be left as is: all open space?
If the almost 50 people who stayed on the Planning & Zoning Commission’s Zoom meeting until almost midnight last night prevail, the 30-acre park will stay the way it is.
Commissioners heard public comments about a proposed text amendment. It would allow a change to town regulations surrounding usage at the park.
No vote was taken, and there is no current plan to build a dog park on the site. Debate involved whether town regulations should be altered to allow consideration of a dog park in the future.
The proposal, brought to the commission by Representative Town Meeting member Andrew Colabella and Staples High School senior Emme Dorfman, asks the planners to consider a change that would permit a fenced-in area in the park, which already has sections for leashed and unleashed dogs.
“A fence does not transform the character of the park. It can be a tool to better manage and make it safer,” Colabella said. “If [the vote is] yes, it can allow the commission to discuss a potential change in the use.”
Colabella noted that a fenced-in dog park with rules would create a safer area for dogs. He cited incidents of dogs running onto Compo Road North, being killed by cars.
A separate area would permit passive park users to not be bothered by dogs off leash, he said. It would help contain waste, and allow for sections where smaller dogs can be separated from bigger ones.
Dogs at Winslow Park. (Photo/Tracy Porosoff)
“Enclosed areas increase aggressive because dogs can’t back away,” said Vicki Volper, who has been walking her dogs at Winslow since 1998. “I don’t believe in fenced in dog parks, but definitely not in Winslow Park.”
Dorfman said she worries her 2 dogs will get loose at Winslow. She worked with Colabella on a “Dogport,” to provide an option for dogs much like the town provides playgrounds for different individuals.
“Some people are spreading rumors that the entire park will be fenced off. That’s simply not true,” she said. “Some people simply aren’t comfortable allowing their dogs to run free outside of a fenced-in area. No one would be required to use the fenced in area.”
RTM member Wendy Batteau has had 4 dogs over 39 years in Westport, and walks in Winslow Park daily. To her this is an open space issue. Unless there is a proven need to change things to add value to daily life, the park should stay as it is, she said.
“Winslow Park is not any town park or property,” she noted. “It is dedicated open space, and we need to keep it open space. Why do we need a text amendment to make it a dog park? I don’t think we should be losing our open space for anything but our most serious issues.”
Winslow Park
P&Z chair Paul Lebowitz said dog parks are not an allowed use in Winslow Park, under current town regulations. By changing the text, he said the commission must consider whether or not it would add value to the people in town.
“Anything we do doesn’t automatically approve anything,” he said. “It gives permission to those who might want one to bring it forward.”
He added that in 2023, the commission voted on a similar text amendment that allowed the use of lighting on municipal athletic field in town — a subject debated earlier last night at the P&Z session.
“There’s been tremendous public interest in this, and rightly so,” Lebowitz said.
The issue will be continued at the P&Z’s meeting on Sept. 14.
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We really cant get anything done in this town. At a minimum, every meeting should not allow seats. When you stand you get to the point. I think people love to attend meetings and pontificate for hours. Dog parks, lights, turf, parker harding, the disaster that is town fields, staples sports facilities, high end executive embarassing portos at every field (worst facilities in the FCIACs), u name it, we meet for hours and talk thru midnight only to walk away with nothing almost every time. I feel bad for the P&Z group often caught in the middle. The BOE oversees too much of our sports programs, which is why the coaches and parents and booster clubs overcompensate to get players the tools they need. Westport is awesome but we are our own worst enemy.
Sometimes, “walking away with nothing” is exactly right. Sometimes, we give far too much time to bad ideas.
I think my comments were conflated with those from Wendy Crowther who did mention walking in Winslow Park every day and having lived here for 39 years. I do think that our few designated open spaces should be protected and worry that if we make this exception, requests for others would be hard to deny. As a dog park already exists on Winslow, I thought this use might be grandfathered in, but the reason this is not so was clear.
How does Central Park in NYC handle the “dog issue?”
I’ve been there a number of times and can’t remember stepping in anything obnoxious. Of course it’s important to look before you step but Westporters are naive, they think that their dogs do it in plastic bags (don’t tell Sustainable Westport).
I appreciate the coverage and everyone who stayed late to participate in the discussion.
One point is especially important: this text amendment does not approve a dog park, fence off Winslow Park, or change how the park operates today. It simply determines whether a fenced recreational dog area could ever be considered at Winslow Park through the normal public approval process.
Winslow is approximately 29.5 acres and the concept Emme Dorfman and I have discussed involves only a small portion of that acreage and would not eliminate the existing open-space experience or require anyone to use an enclosed area. The existing leashed and off-leash areas can remain.
I also respectfully disagree with the suggestion that a fenced dog area provides no public value. For residents whose dogs cannot safely be off leash in an unenclosed area, there currently is no comparable option at Winslow. A properly designed enclosure can provide that choice, separate large and small dogs, reduce the risk of dogs reaching Compo Road North, and give people who prefer not to interact with off-leash dogs greater separation.
Preserving open space and improving how the public can safely enjoy that open space are not mutually exclusive.
This is exactly why the process exists: to hear concerns, correct misinformation, discuss the merits openly, and determine whether the idea deserves further consideration.
The fact that you’re asking for a small portion of land, a half acre approximately, poses its own problem. It means it would accommodate little dogs very well but big dogs not as much. I’ve read a comment on 06880 from a Westport resident who goes to Rowayton, Milford, Easton and other fenced dog parks in CT that are a minimum of an acre and up to two acres. That person would love to have one in Westport but this isn’t the same and I wonder if that wouldn’t change their mind.
I was one of the people who last Sunday fielded a petition to oppose your amendment. Very few people, five but I’ll be generous and give you 10 out of 175, thought the fenced area was a good idea. They came to the park knowing the site that had been settled upon and referred to it as a little dog park.
Finally, your assurances that the rest of the park will not be impacted are very good to hear. My new concern, given my experience last Sunday, is that if it does get built no one or very few will use it. But that singular experience is just that and more research should be done to assess the need/desire for a small fenced area.
Per the P&Z Chairman’s instructions at last night’s meeting regarding text amendment #874, the pros and cons of the proposed fenced “Dogport” is NOT the immediate question at hand. Instead, it is whether or not the text amendment should be approved to modify the Designated Open Space DOSRD#1 zoning regulation protection under which Winslow Park currently falls. Approval of the text amendment would then allow for the consideration of the proposal for a fenced structure (Dogport) to be permanently installed on the Winslow Park currently designated open space acreage. The DOSRD #1 designation was deliberately crafted for the purpose of protecting natural open landscapes and for them to remain structurally unencumbered. This text amendment will modify the use of this beautiful property currently intended for passive open access and could partition a portion of the Winslow property by way of a large, enclosed structure up to 30,000 square feet in size. This changes the original Winslow open access designation by limiting the fenced portion of land to a specific single use. In addition, if the text amendment is approved (as the first step required) but the proposed “Dogport” fenced structure is ultimately not approved after-the-fact, the modified text amendment still stands and permanently modifies the zoning regulation 40 for Dedicated Open Space thereby exposing Winslow to future requests to modify the public open space for specific designated uses. A slippery slope.
I am a dog owner, but I place the value of Winslow Park first and foremost as designated open green space, as it is defined today. While we are lucky to have our dogs join us both off and on leash, it is not appropriate for the town to change Winslow’s zoning protection to open up the possibility of building an enclosed structure, forever changing the open, natural landscape. It is simply the responsibility of dog owners as users of this precious open space to always have their dogs under control–both on and off-leash.
I call for P&Z to vote NO to the proposed text amendment change #874.