By Jessie Weisner

DOG PARK OPENING

New Medicine Hat dog park hopes to open in October

Aug 15, 2019 | 11:09 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — A new dog park announced this summer is expected to be ready for use by October.

The site located between the Gas City Campground and the Hillside Cemetery is meant to make up for space lost when the Kin Coulee park became on-leash only on January 1.

Since June, the city has been working with trans Canada, who has a pipeline that goes through the park.

With their approval, they’ve been working on plans to fence off the 40 acre area.

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“We’ve been working with Trans Canada pipeline to get a crossing agreement,” says James Will, general manager for parks and recreation with the City of Medicine Hat. “There’s a pipeline that goes through the property and once we select the fence we’ll continue to finalize that with them.”

The aim is to begin construction on the fence in September, and have the site open to the public in mid October.

$50,000 would be invested in the site initially to build the fence. An additional $25,000 each year would be approved for 2020, 2021, and 2022.

Once the area is open to public, the city plans on adding other infrastructure.

“We’ll look at future amenities for it, I know we previously talked about a sun shelter and we’ve looked at if there’s access for water, whether it’s a drinking fountain or any sort of water to the site for humans for dogs,” says Will.

Will says there’s no natural water access at the site, but there is in other areas of the city for dog owners.

“With this site I know we don’t have access to a natural water body,” says Will. “We still remind people they can access water through the environmental reserves throughout the city. We’ve got about 1500 acres they can go through, there’s a number of access points whether its through the river or the creek that’s running through the city as well.”

The City is also working on two other dog parks, one near Goodyear Canada in Crescent Heights and one by the tourist centre. They hope to complete those in 2020.

“The visitor information centre site isn’t one that’s going to be on the list for this year,” says Will. “Our primary focus next year would be the site by the good year.”