Here’s a rendering that shows how that informal dog bowl along Buffalo Bayou near Montrose Blvd. will be formalized and capitalized into a Dog Park. Construction, says a PR rep for the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, will begin the first of the year; the park should be open next winter.
Why, you might wonder, would it take that long to build a place for dogs to romp and run and bark and stuff? Part of it will be creating the pond you can see in the rendering. The pond, which will be treated with a “bio-filter” and native vegetation, is meant to keep said dogs 1) safe and 2) away from the bayou, so they don’t muddy up the banks scrambling in and out of the water and contribute to erosion. Other additions? A purty fence that will separate the pups from the joggers and 2 pavilions, at the top of the hill, that will provide a bit more shade.
- Previously on Swamplot: What’s Been Happening at Buffalo Bayou Park, Introducing the Bud Light Amphitheater, the Next Greenspace To Grace Buffalo Bayou, How To Build a Buffalo Bayou Pedestrian Bridge: A Photo Tutorial, The Next New Bridge Going over the Bayou, More Pedestrian Bridges and Other Twists and Turns in the Plans for Buffalo Bayou Park
Rendering: SWA Group
This is great! Inner loop needs a good dog park that is FENCED!!!! I have seen way too many dogs wander up that hill and into the turn off Montrose on to Allen Pkwy….scary. Hope it happens!
That’s all pretty and everything, but can they do anything about the smell?
What smell? The bat colony? That’s just how bats smell
wear deoderant.
The “bio filter” is to keep the doggie poo from going into the bayou. The bacteria levels in the bayou are already off the charts thanks to all the runoff of fertilizer, garbage and poo that ends up in the bayou. Previous efforts to turn the de facto dog park at Montrose and Allen Pwky into a de jure dog park were stymied on the grounds that too much poo would end up in the bayou.
Colleen you’ll be fine once you get in the habit of bathing more than once a week.
So, okay, when we get that once-or-twice-a-year heavy rain that fills up that bowl with rainwater, that blue pond will be underwater, along with the cutesy bridge, and all of the “poo” you guys are talking about will get washed into the bayou anyway.
At least they’re fencing it off. I hate irresponsible dog owners who illegally let their unleashed dogs run loose.
Very interesting about the poo issue, I was wondering about that with the bayou being so near. I use to use the Laurel Canyon Dog Park when I lived in LA, they literally had plain clothed policemen roam the park to fine people who didn’t pick up after their dogs or didn’t obey the rules, their level of enforcement would have made even the SS take note. Though I don’t wish that level of enforcement for this park, I do hope they at least do some things early on to let people know that the rules will be enforced. Especially at Dog Parks the rules must be obeyed or you get dog fights, poo everywhere, etc., these parks can be tricky, I think Laurel Canyon was the first official Dog Park and it took years, thru trial and error, for them to get it right.
@ GoogleMaster
Wow, you are one angry guy, aren’t you?
@ txdesign
Wow, you’re one of those guys that lets your dog run unleashed, aren’t you?
@Joe
Not a dog owner, sorry. Just have a problem with people that throw the word “hate” around so easily. For example I am annoyed by parents who let their kids run around loose in restaurants or drivers who try to cut in at the front of a waiting line of cars. That doesn’t mean I hate them.
Mt tax dollars for a doggy park? What a waste of money when people are hungry, schools are terrible, this is beyond useless. I could care less about dogs..
@ txdesign
Gothcha. But I was walking last nite and a guy let his dog run right up to me, barking ferociously the whole way. Luckily nothing happened, but hate was not too strong a word at that moment.
Dogs are overdone, however doggie density is not going away and this spiffed up park will attract residential development over the decades and so all those dogs, who in a modern society need a park, will have one too. It’ll get a lot of use too as those dog owners will live in places with tiny or no yards.
CM, there are also tax dollars for schools. Restaurant Weeks just donated $1.2 million to the Houston Food Bank.
This is part of the entire Buffalo Bayou Park renovation. Now go play with your cats.
This is great! The bayou is coming along nicely in my opinion!
At least my cats don’t defecate in your front yard, or the park, or slobber on you. If there is so much money available why are 20 magnet schools closing due to lack of funding and why are the failing academically? You talk in absolutes but are likely all good intentions and no follow through (as most selfish people are).
pardon me “they”, not “the”, text lag around here has been bad lately with firefox.
@cm, the schools with the magnet programs aren’t closing, the programs are being dropped sue to a lack of participation. Worthing HS had one magnet student – the program doesn’t deserve to exist. Same with West U Elementary, where there were 40 magnet kids from an enrollment of 1200.
As for the new dog park, it’s about time they put up a fence. I would be happier however, if they arrested and prosecuted all of the idiots who currently let their dogs run around unleashed in an area that’s not a real dog park. We have a dog, it is off the leash only in our yard, not somewhere where there are other people and dogs we don’t know.
Ah thanks for the clarification; and the sanity when it comes to dogs. I live around the corner from the new park area, and all those 20 somethings with more money than common sense ($1400 for a one bedroom apartment dwellers) walk their frou frou dogs up W Dallas and seemingly have no problems letting these pampered mutts crap all over my front yard, and only about 1 in 20 actually cleans up. I’m sure the park will meet the same fate.
cm – If my dog ever crapped in your yard, i would clean it up. I can’t say the same for the cat owners in my neighborhood, whose pets crap in my yard all the time.