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King County Parks has decided not to move forward with placing a fenced off-leashed dog park at the Wax Orchard site near Old Mill Road on Vashon Island. After careful consideration and site assessment, and after receiving many public comments and questions about this opportunity, Parks has decided to look for another site to meet this community need.
Dog park advocates, the Vashon Island Parks District, and King County Parks have been trying to find an appropriate location for a fenced off-leash dog area for many years. After King County Parks acquired the Wax Orchard Site in fall 2022, we held a public meeting in March 2023 and surveyed the community to learn more about how people wanted to use the property. At the meeting, Friends Into Dogs Organization proposed designating a small – 1 to 3 acres – area on the 110-acre property.
We used several criteria to evaluate this proposed use, assessing environmental factors, size, potential use conflicts, funding restrictions, and access requirements, including parking. One finding of the evaluation by the County road engineer was that the existing shoulder parking along Old Mill Road was not adequate to support the potential sustained use increase associated with a dog park due to the narrow shoulder, public safety concerns, and pavement conditions. There was also a high level of community interest, and most public input received in recent months preferred that a fenced off-leash dog area be located at a different site.
We are grateful for the high level of community interest in this topic, and for how much the community is embracing Wax Orchard as public open space. We hope that we can also meet the community’s request for a dog park soon, too!
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