Proposed Dog Parks

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Update:

• At the July meeting, members of the Aurora Highlands Civic Association introduced and passed a resolution supporting the establishment of a dog park in the area.
• On August 6 representatives from AHCA and Shirlington met with Christian Dorsey, the Arlington County Board Chair, and conversations are continuing. There has not yet been commitment to action any time soon for the Virginia Highlands / Pentagon City initiative.
• The Eads Park proposal has been “passed through to the planning group.  If true, we will all get involved when they finish with it.  Until then, we wait.”

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Residents are working on two initiatives to finally get public fenced, off-leash dog parks in our area.

This has been a constant request for over 20 years, and dog parks on both the north and south side of the neighborhood have been previously endorsed in the 2008 Aurora Highlands Neighborhood Conservation plan and the 2019 Public Spaces Master Plan.

 

Virginia Highlands Park

The initiative is proposing to create a large fenced dog area, a small dog area, and open space at Virginia Highlands Park, across from the Pentagon City Mall, reusing space from one underutilized diamond field to be able to meet all of these needs together. This would be temporary in nature so that it could be created quickly inexpensively, and revisited when the park is renovated in the next 5 or so years. Although not ideal, flexibility exists if field space cannot be repurposed, provided the justification for retaining field space over community needs is sufficiently articulated to the community.

The following documents provide additional details about the Virginia Highlands Park proposal:

• Proposal executive summary
• Full proposal
• Endorsement from Shirlington Dogs
• AHCA letter to county board

 

Eads Park

An initiative started by an Arlington Ridge resident to create a dog park at Fort Scott Park has been revised to create a smaller “dog run” at Eads Park.

This proposal is currently being considered by the Department of Parks and Recreation. The area could be up to 20,000 square feet, depending on where the fences would be placed. There have been suggestions that trees may need to be removed, although most of the trees are around the edge of the proposed dog park and it is likely that few if any trees would have to be removed.  In any event, the shade would be very welcome to the dogs and owners during the summer months.

Most of the affected residents are in the are in the Fern Gardens Apartments (across Fort Scott) and the doors are locked.  The manager has been contacted by email but no response has been received to date. 

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