The Dog Park
Hardly a day has gone by over the last week where I didn’t come across yet another news story on the brouhaha over Santa Monica’s new dog park. It’s been on the TV, newspapers, the Internet just about everywhere.
If you haven’t heard about it, Santa Monica just built a new park on the south side of the Santa Monica Airport and its the first new park they’ve built in 24 years. One of the features of the park is a small dog park where people can let their pooches run untethered.
I did say brouhaha didn’t I? That’s because when LA’s Mar Vista residents from nearby leashed up their canines and walked across the street to visit the park they were being turned away by park security if the animal wasn’t wearing a Santa Monica dog tag.
According to the LA Times, “The situation has prompted howls of protest from indignant Angelenos, including Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who noted in a statement that L.A. residents live close by and will be affected by traffic to and from the location but won’t be able to exercise their dogs there. Rosendahl, whose district includes Mar Vista, added that he was hoping to work out a compromise with Santa Monica officials.
“I have a responsibility to protect Los Angeles residents from unfair practices,” Rosendahl said.
I can understand the indignancy being expressed by our Angelenos but it is a misplaced indignancy. We should be turning around and glaring back at our city leaders and pointingly asking them where are our new parks?
Santa Monica residents got a new park for their property tax payments. They had to wait 24 years but what have Los Angeles city residents been getting for their property taxes? More traffic, fewer city services like street resurfacing, sidewalk repairs. The number of police officers hasn’t kept pace with the population. Parks have for the most part been entirely off the city’s radar.
Over the last couple of decades there have been many missed chances for building new parks. The city rarely misses a chance to approve high density developments. An example was the West Bluffs that rise majestically above the Ballona freshwater marsh and have since been developed by Catellus. In 2003 Catellus offered to sell the property but the city failed to even consider making an offer. A West Bluffs park would have been a real jewel having a view of most of West Los Angeles and the Santa Monica Mountains.
Another local example was the Southern California Gas Company sale of various properties around Westchester and Playa del Rey. Some of these undeveloped properties could have been purchased by the city and become small pocket parks and continued to offer residents a respite from corner to corner housing.
Because Santa Monica does the right thing (at least this time) by placing its residents quality of life over high density development doesn’t mean that it should also be burdened by LA’s lack of forsight and buying into the arguement that housing must be provided for anyone who demands it.
[...] this comes only months after the council office found itself at odds with Santa Monica officials when Mar Vista residents were not allowed to use a new dog park that [...]