A wealthy neighborhood in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., has voted to dismantle a controversial dog park after some residents complained about barking.
The village board of Chevy Chase, Maryland, voted 5 to 2 in favor of removing the fence around the park so that dogs can no longer run off leash, the Washington Post reported Monday.
“The size and location of this off-leash area is not meeting standards,” said board chairwoman Elissa Leonard, who is married to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
Leonard’s comments were met with boos from those who opposed the decision.
“You should be ashamed of yourselves!” a member of the crowd yelled.
More than 100 people attended the public hearing after months of drama over the dog park. The neighborhood feud was detailed by the Washington Post in a story published last month.
The village spent $134,000 nearly a year ago to turn 15,000 square feet of land into a fenced-in dog park. After a few weeks, signs condemning barking dogs were placed around the park and the police began receiving calls almost daily with noise complaints, especially from one neighbor whose house borders the park.
The complaints became so frequent that the village board held several hearings on the matter since May.
“Around dinner time, I’d like to be able to sit on my deck and maybe read a book and chat with a friend or have a glass of wine, and the dogs are barking,” Joanie Edwards, the neighbor who frequently called police, said at the first hearing.
Edwards, a retired elementary school teacher, said she had to turn on music to drown out the barking.
“People in the community keep saying, ‘She should get another dog, if she had a dog, it would be different,’” she said. “Well, first of all, I am a very considerate person, and if I had a dog, and he was barking in my backyard, I would bring him in. If my children were in a restaurant crying, I would take them out.”
Before Monday’s hearing, the village board did change the opening time from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. and removed the park’s existence from the community’s website. It also paid $1,300 to a woman with a graduate degree in epidemiology to spend time at the park studying the behavior of the dogs and their owners. After 54 visits, the woman had no solution for barking dogs.
In response to dog owners angry over Monday’s decision, Leonard said Montgomery County officials are planning to build more dog parks in the area.
“I don’t know how I am going to break this to Louie,” resident Patty Martin said, referring to her French bulldog.
