SUNDRE – A little more than one year after the municipality introduced an off-leash dog park immediately adjacent to the Town of Sundre administration office, a permanent spot has yet to be determined.
“The location that it’s at can never become permanent because it is overtop of the gas line,” said Chris Albert, director of corporate services, referring to the TC Energy right-of-way.
As a result of community feedback and subsequent consultations with the company, council approved conditional use of the site amid the summer break in 2023 during a special meeting that was convened to address the matter.
But although technically temporary, the site that due to conditional-use restrictions features little more than a fenced-in area with grass has proven to be fairly popular and is not expected to go anywhere; at least not any time soon.
“From what we’ve seen, it has been quite successful,” said Albert, adding the off-leash park will continue to be available under conditional use.
“It will stay there for the foreseeable future,” he said.
That is, at least until such a time as an opportunity might present itself to relocate the park to a more suitable alternative location.
“I think now the next steps would be when we have a potential permanent location available, that would be the discussion – or the decision for council to make – as to whether we make it permanent in another location,” said Albert.
“But right now, the kind of constraints that existed before about having a permanent location still exist in that we don’t have a lot of town land in order to kind of build a permanent dog park on.”
The fenced-in park, which is located immediately on the west side of the town office and can be accessed by parking lot off of Main Avenue West, is the only place within town limits that dogs may lawfully as per municipal bylaws be allowed to run off-leash.
