The Planning and Zoning Commission Tuesday night approved both a definition of a dog park and the regulations that would govern it.
The issue came before the commission when the Friends of the Norfolk Dog Park, Inc., petitioned for a text amendment reducing the required acreage from 20 acres to two acres.
A dog park was approved for Westside Road in March 2023 following a long public hearing that elicited hours of testimony and more than 60 letters supporting and opposing the park. Plans for that park fell through, however, and the Friends are seeking a new location. They argued it will be easier to identify a new site if only two acres are required.
When the dog park was first proposed, the zoning regulations did not include “dog park” specifically and the application was considered under the rules for recreational facilities, which require 20 acres.
The first order of business was to define a dog park. Members settled on a simple declarative sentence: A dog park is a parcel of land with an enclosed area for the off-leash exercise of dogs under the supervision of their guardians.
Discussion then turned to parking and signage, with members deciding that the commission did not have the authority to regulate parking on public streets and that park rules and regulations should be clearly posted.
The most difficult question was a setback regulation. Some members felt a 50-foot setback would be the minimum needed to minimize the impact on neighbors. Jordan Stern argued that such a deep setback would be too restrictive on a two-acre lot, but Edward Barron wanted the 50-foot setback to be off-limits altogether for animal owners and their on-leash pets. “If they are allowed to run around in the setback there is no setback,” he said. He asserted that the regulations should restrict the animals only to off-leash exercise within the fenced-in area.
The final vote approved the 50-foot setback (for both the parking lot and the fenced enclosure), struck the on-street parking prohibition, established signage regulations and directed that dogs must be leashed except within the enclosure.