At the beginning…
Following is a translation of our proposition to the City to establish a dog park where was the Bonaventure-Brennan park, at the corner of Duke and Brennan St.
Apart from the Old Port territory, there is very little green space in Old Montréal where a dog park could be established. So after the Old Port rejected our proposition to use a parcel of their land to install a dog park in 2006, our Committee member, Julie-Emmanuelle Carle, asked us to take a look at the green space at the corner of Duke and Brennan Street. From that moment, we started a new project with optimism since this time it would not be presented to the federal government via Mrs Claude Benoît CEO of the Old Port Corporation, but to our City Counselor, Catherine Sévigny, who took it under her wing from the beginning with great enthusiasm.
Bonaventure-Brennan Park in 2006, which has become our dog park Pilote in 2007
Note : For reasons related to cost and feasability, we finally gave up the idea of giving access to the dog park to members only, by giving them a key or a card.
Pictures provided by Chantal Bélanger – August 1st, 2007
Evolution of the park in pictures
Picture taken by Chantal Bélanger – August 9 2007
Pictures taken by Chantal Bélanger – August 15, 2007
Pictures taken by Marie-France Lévesque – August 16, 2007
Pictures taken by Marie-France Lévesque – August 29, 2007
Picture taken by Marie-Antoinette Novy – August 29, 2007
Picture taken by Marie-France Lévesque – September 5, 2007
Urban Art
On September 5, 2007, the Urban Art Museum had an exhibit opening of the three large structures housing monumental light boxes showing chosen pictures of three artists.
One of the artists, Josée Pedneault, City Counselor, Catherine Sévigny and France Gascon, Director of Musée d’art urbain.
France Gascon discussing with Alain Dufort, Public Works Director, City of Montréal.
Catherine Sévigny
20.09.2007
Following are the conditions
requested by the City
before establishing a dog pak
in a neighborhood
-
Future users (minimum of 25 signatures) have to present a project indicating a site. The site has to be big enough for a dog park and not already used by other conflicting activities. -
The suggested site must be far enough from residences.
-
The work required has to fit inside the budget allowed for this type of equipment.
-
Surrounding residents must be informed in order to obtain their agreement on the localisation of the dog park.
-
If there’s a consensus among residents and if money is available for the project, dog owners must form an association legally recognized by the City and accept to become partners with the City to preserve peacefullness in the dog park area, as well as to see that users respect the environment and the dog park rules.
Proposition of the
Canine Club Vieux-Montréal
to Borough of Ville-Marie
to obtain a dog park
-
The Bonaventure-Brennan Park seems to fill the requested conditions by the City.
-
A formal request has been made to the Borough of Ville-Marie in order to use the Bonaventure-Brennan Park as a dog park.
-
We have formed a non-profit organization, called Canine Club Vieux-Montréal (CCVM), we’ve registered it to the Registraire des entreprises and we’ve obtained our licence.
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Members of our committee, who also form the board of CCVM, have voted in favour of an annual membership fee, which will allow us, first of all to pay for the expenses related to the establishment of our club as well as cumulating a small budget to help us maintain the park and perhaps organize activities. And, as requested by some people, we analysed the possibility to make our dog park accessible to members with a key or a card,
-
If you are intetested in joining the Canine Club Vieux-Montréal, please contact us.
November 21, 2006(Translated document)
Mrs. Catherine Sévigny
City Counsellor – Peter-McGill District
Borough of Ville-Marie
888, de Maisonneuve Blvd. East, 5th Floor
Montréal, Québec H2L 4S8
SUBJECT : Proposition to establish a dog park at the Bonaventure-Brennan Park
in Old Montréal
Madam,
As discussed before, please find herewith a proposition in order to establish a dog park in the Bonaventure-Brennan Park, at the corner of Duke and Brennan Streets.
As requested by the City of Montréal, we have formed a non-profit organization, legally recognized under the name of Canine Club Vieux-Montréal, whose members of the board are : Julie-Emmanuelle Carle, Maurice Cusson, Nina Gushina, Jean Lessard, Marie-France Lévesque and myself. Furthermore, the 25 members who signed the attached proposition are dog owners who live or work in Old Montréal and who have already paid their $25. annual membership fee (valid until May 31, 2008), helping us at the same time to pay for the cost of establishing our club. The annual membership fee will also allow us to keep some control over the park since our members will be provided with a key or a card to access it, and, a small budget will help us maintain our park and organize some activities.
Again, we assure you of our willingness to take our responsibilities regarding this project and to do our best to preserve the peacefulness in the area and to see that members respect the environment and the dog park rules.
We take this opportunity to thank you warmly for the unconditional support you gave us since the beginning of our endeavor.
Hoping for a positive answer from the Borough of Ville-Marie, please accept, Mrs. Sévigny, on behalf of all the undersigned, our sincere salutations.
Marlène Savard
Canine Club Vieux-Montréal
P R O P O S I T I O N
addressed to the Borough of Ville-Marie
to establish a dog park in Old Montréal
Present situation
Dogs are the precious companion of an always growing number of residents in Old Montréal. To those residents, you can also add many workers who bring their dog to their place of work. For all of them, their dog is a member of their family and to make place for the dog, is to respect their choice.
Exercising Dog Parks
In many neighborhoods, the City of Montréal had installed fences around part of some parks to make it a place for dogs to exercise. In those spaces, dogs can run freely, without a leash, providing also the following benefits :
1.If a dog gets sufficient exercise, he is happier and healthier.
2.If a dog gets sufficient exercise and runs without a leash, plays and socializes with his friends and other masters, he represents less a threat to the community;
3.If a dog gets sufficient exercise he’ll be less inclined to run after joggers, cyclists, children and other dogs.
4.If a dog gets sufficient exercise by running in a fenced park, it means less trouble for his master since he’ll be less inclined to bark for no reason or to jump on people.
5.If a dog gets sufficient exercise and learns to socialize, he’ll be a better neighbor that an isolated dog who gets bored.
Besides giving their companion an occasion to socialize, masters find also in these parks, a kind of community gathering.
City Rules
From what we found, the City of Montréal considers establishing a dog park following a demand from potential users and according to the site possibilities. Following are the conditions requested by the City before establishing a dog park in a neighborhood:
1. Future users (minimum of 25 signatures) have to present a project indicating a site.
The site has to be big enough for a dog park and not already used by other conflicting activities.
2. The suggested site must be far enough from residences.
3. The work required has to fit inside the budget allowed for this type of equipment.
4. Surrounding residents must be informed in order to obtain their agreement on the localization of the dog park.
5. If there’s a consensus among residents and if money is available for the project, dog owners must form an association legally recognized by the City and accept to become partners with the City to preserve peacefulness in the dog park area, as well as to see that users respect the environment and the dog park rules.
Bonaventure-Brennan Park
Bonaventure-Brennan Park
There are many dogs in Old Montréal but few places allowing enough space for a dog park. Nevertheless, we have identified a potential site which responds to all criteria requested by the City. It is the park at the corner of Duke and Brennan Streets, called Bonaventure-Brennan Park. Actually there are a few picnic tables but, considering that workers in the neighborhood can enjoy the tables and all the green spaces offered by the nearby Old Port, where dogs are prohibited, we count on their understanding.
The Bonaventure-Brennan Park has many of the criteria required when searching for a potential dog park site:
• It is located far enough from the residences without being too isolated.
• It possesses a water source (fire hydrant).
• It is big enough to include a section for smaller dogs.
• It is sufficiently lit to be visited at night.
• It is accessible to people in wheel chairs.
Suggested Installations
The following plan is not drawn to scale but it gives a general idea of the space. The purpose of the present document is solely to give you some installation suggestions.
The fence
A four feet height fence (1.2 meters) should be installed all around the designated park area. If it is a Frost type of fence, some vine could be planted at its base so that with time, it will cover it entirely for a prettier look. It could be planted from the exterior or the interior, depending on the City recommendations. There are many small dogs in the neighborhood so to provide them with a fenced area within the park would certainly avoid unintentional incidents with bigger dogs. It should be made accessible to maintenance vehicles as well.
Access
We would suggest two entrances, both on Brennan Street since there is no sidewalk on Duke Street. When entering the park using the access at the corner of Duke and Brennan St., once passed the first door, we have a choice : we either enter the section reserved to smaller dogs of 20 pounds or less (9 kilos), or we enter the other door where all dogs can go. Double entrances, as indicated on the above plan, allow the master to penetrate into the vestibule with his dog on a leash, to free his dog from his leash before entering the park, and by doing so, avoiding possible confrontations.
Fountain for dogs
We would like to take advantage of the fire hydrant nearby, corner of Duke-Brennan, to have the City installed us a water fountain for the dogs. An area of about 12’x12’ (10m2) surrounding the fountain could be covered by concrete slabs with a drain in the middle in order to avoid the accumulation of water an mud all around.
Important : Part of the ground, all along the Wellington Exit, is a gradual slope, making it more susceptible to water and mud accumulations. So before undertaking any work in the area, it could be wise to check if the ground is properly drained.
Other suggestions
Two garbage cans, preferably covered, should be installed near the two entrances, outside of the park but accessible from inside, to facilitate the work of the maintenance workers. Inside the park, we will install some bag distributors, regularly filled by the members of our club.
Two or three picnic tables would be nice to have but also, if at all possible, we would certainly appreciate some kind of shelter to preserve us a little bit from the rain or the snow. We could also use the shelter to install a board inside it to display relevant messages, business cards, useful phone numbers, coming activities and other any pertinent information.
If there is somewhere in the City’s sheds an unused shelter that we could even fix ourselves, we would be more than happy to do so. Another possibility would be to use one or two of the parking spaces under the highway, next to the park, since it is covered and there is a wall we could use for display.
Rules
A bilingual poster would be installed near each of both entrances, indicating clearly the rules:
All members of the Canine Club Vieux-Montréal, the undersigned and future members, will see that these rules are respected.
All of us, undersigned, dog owners and
members of the Canine Club Vieux-Montréal
commit ourselves to respect the City of Montréal rules
concerning dog parks, to see that users respect the environment
and preserve the peacefulness of the surroundings
all around the Bonaventure-Brennan Park
if he Borough of Ville-Marie accepts to make it dog park:
Marlène Savard
Maurice Cusson
Jean Lessard
Nina Gushina
Julie-Emmanuelle Carle
Marie-France Lévesque
Martin Audet
We warmly thank all the people who quickly responded to our proposition
and signed this document, allowing us to send it quickly to Catherine Sévigny.
We consider the undersigned as the founders of our club.
Catherine Lemay
Pascal Fernand
Christiane Germain
Sylvie Peronne
Diane Chalifour
Émile Gaudreau
Jean-Luc Bouchard
Sonia Boutin
Robert Hack
Éric Girard
Bryan Mahoney
John Scott
Geneviève Robert
Nicolas Nélisse
Lysanne Pepin
Richard Ouellette
Marc-Antoine Roy
Craig Clark
Ashlynne Lang
Catherine Sévigny
City Counsellor
Borough of Ville-Marie
was pleased
to inform us
on March 2nd, 2007
in response to our
proposition (below)
that a dog park
will be established on
Bonaventure-Brennan Park
as early as this year.
There are still some details to finalized but the work will begin as soon as the weather permits.
Ms. Sévigny sent us
this City plan.
Thanks Catherine Sévigny
for believing in our project and for having invested so much energy into it.
Dog Park – Bonaventure-Brennan Park – May 23 meeting
At first, one can think that putting together a dog park is a small task. All one has to do is find a piece of land, put a fence around it and it’s roughly done. In an ideal world, we would have a nice small green park which would stay green even after being visited many times by a multitude of dogs.
In reality any small grassy park intended to be visited by many dogs will not survive after a few weeks, specially after heavy rains where it could turn into a pool of mud if we’re not careful. To avoid that, we asked the City to cover the grass at Brennan Park with some kind of gravel, preferably decomposed granite. But even if they would agree with our suggestion, it is not as simple as put gravel over the grass. The ground has to be prepared first in order to drain correctly. Otherwise, all our efforts would sink in the mud. Yet, to prepare the ground for proper draining is an expensive process for which we don’t have enough money in the budget allocated to our park. This subject was discussed at our meeting with Ms. Catherine Sévigny, City Counselor, and Mr. Alain Dufort, in charge of our project at Borough Ville-Marie on May 23.
Money allocated to our dog park will mainly pay for the fence and its installation. Preparation of the ground for proper draining and covering with gravel will have to be submitted to Borough Ville-Marie next year. Again, we’ll need our counselor to plead our cause and obtain the necessary funds from the City if we want to see our efforts result in a lasting project.
We hope that eventually the cost of the work for draining our park will be approved and done. But for now, Borough Ville-Marie will go ahead with the installation of the fence in June 2007. The Canine Club Vieux-Montréal will sign a memorandum of understanding with the City, entrusting the club with the management of the dog park at Bonaventure-Brennan. Members of the Club will have to commit themselves and respect the dog park rules and orders. Orders like closing the park after heavy rains to preserve the ground from turning into a pool of mud and reopen it only when dry will particularly be important. Even more so in our park since there is a slope between the highway and the park, creating a rapid accumulation of water.
Our association is presently looking into different means we could use to control the access of the park, either with a key or a card, and our members, on their part, will have to respect notices of closing due to rain or maintenance. We’d like our investment to last a long time. If the dog park is well conceived, all those who’ll come after us will also be able to enjoy it.
If all goes well, we should have a dog park at the end of June. Apart from Borough Ville-Marie whose services and openness are greatly appreciated, we’ll also try to attract sponsors to get involved in our project. You know someone?
Marlène Savard
News of our dog park • July 15, 2007
It’s true, we told you that our dog park will be in place in June. OK then, it will be in July or even in August. So what? After meeting with extremely persevering people who fought for many years before finally getting their dog park (I invite you to visit “canardscanins.ca” among the links on our Website) I consider ourselves very lucky. Thanks to the openness and dynamism of Catherine Sévigny, City Counselor at Borough Ville-Marie, we’ll get our dog park only 8 or 9 months after filing our official request on November 21, 2006!
Our requests
Maurice Cusson and I have contacted Catherine Sévigny a few times concerning our dog park project. Following are our main requests. Apart from the surrounding fence, we asked for a division for smaller dogs inside the park. We asked to have installed an agricultural drain along the slope in order to evacuate water outside our park. We also asked them to include all trees inside the park, which wasn’t the case on their drawing.
We asked for a water source, if possible inside the park, if not we asked them to add a faucet to the hydrant located at the corner of Duke and Brennan Streets, near the entrance of the dog park. We asked that the ground, inside the double entrance, be covered with some kind of concrete slabs. We asked that the area inside the park, near the water source, also be covered with concrete slabs.
We asked for two picnic tables, also on concrete slabs and a park bench to be placed inside the division for small dogs. We asked for garbage bin to be placed outside the park but reachable from inside. They should be covered and not too big since they can be difficult for the City workers to handle when full. We prepared a list of rules based on existing ones, to be displayed at the entrance of our park and we submitted them to the City for their approval and printing.
Catherine Sévigny suggested to add some of the City lighted posterboards displaying artistic pictures in order to give our park some kind of cultural dimension, while bringing electricity to it at the same time, which brought us to also ask for additional sources of lighting in the park. So far, expenses for the park exceed the amount allocated in the budget and Catherine Sévigny had to go back the Counsel to ask for more money, which she obtained.
Step by step
On July 6, 2007, on the site of our future dog park, we met with Alain Dufort, Public Works Director, accompanied by Roxanne Lessard, landscaped architect of the City, who occupies this function only since June 18, to discuss some details.
At first, the three posterboards will be installed, at the bottom of the slope, and with them, the electricity to feed them. As for additional lighting, they’ll have to wait another time, but at least, the electricity will be there. As for the agricultural drain that we wished to see installed at the bottom of the slope, Mr. Dufort explained to us that he could not accept that an agricultural drain would discharge water in the streets since it is not allowed in Montréal ; this drain would have to go into the sewer system. So, the draining of the park would have to be the subject of a future request.
The division for smaller dogs is part of the plan and the budget. However it will be installed a few weeks later than the surrounding fence.
As for the faucet that we asked the City to add to the hydrant at the corner of Duke and Brennan in order to have a water source, unfortunately for technical reasons that particular hydrant cannot be modified. But, as suggested by Mr. Dufort, the other hydrant near the park can and will be modified. Although it is further away from the park, it is certainly better than nothing. As for concrete slabs at the entrance, picnic tables, park bench, garbage bin, poster with the rules, Mr. Dufort and Ms. Lessard agreed to our requests. The latest news concerning the park were to the effect that the fence should be installed during in July. Due to many rainy days these past weeks and the holiday period, we won’t go as far as giving you a specific date for the Official Opening…but it should be soon.
On our part, we’ve analyzed various ways to limit the access of the dog park to members only, either with a key or a card, but due to a lack of time, money and convictions, we’ve decided to let the park open to all at least the first year and if need be, we’ll reconsider that option next year.
Other associations
During the past months, Maurice and I have contacted people from other dog owners associations and visited a few dog parks. We’ve met people with admirable devoutness, people who invest lots of time, energy and creativity into their park and who take care of their environment. On the Website “canardscanins.ca” there is an incredible amount of information on dog parks, carefully gathered and published by Mr. Jacques Beaulieu. Anyone who’d like to file a request for a dog park in their neighborhood should go and visit that Website first.
We also thank Michèle Cauchon and Marc Béchamp from the dog owners association of Iles-des-Sœurs, Brigit from Westmount Dog Owners Association and Nicole Boudreau from the Dog Walkers Association of Parc de la Bruère, who generously gave us their time and precious advices.
Marlène Savard
Montréal September 20, 2007 – On November 21st, 2006 our dog owners association, the Canine Club Vieux-Montréal, presented a project of a dog park to our City Counsellor Catherine Sévigny at Borough Ville-Marie. Thanks to her, only ten months later, on September 20, 2007 at 4 p.m., we celebrate the Official Opening of our dog park, at the corner of Duke and Brennan Streets.
In a rather hostile environment for dogs, particularly in Old Montréal, Catherine Sévigny has nevertheless decided not only to support our project but she made it better, she added her own signature to it. She even found a way to mix urban art and canine park by having installed the three huge illuminated Artboards exhibiting photographs of different artists next to our park. Next year, new pictures will be exhibited there by the Musée d’art urbain.
Mrs. Sévigny pays attention to details: a beautiful black fence including a division for small dogs, flower boxes, picnic tables and benches fixed on a concrete base, fountains for people and dogs, as if everything worth doing deserves to be well done.
While working on this project, we appreciated the closeness of people at Borough Ville-Marie and above all, the understanding of our Counsellor, Catherine Sévigny. For citizens like us, there are no small projects. There are only projects that will make a difference in our quality of life. This project pleasantly showed us that sometimes we can be wrong about politics and its elected members. Congratulations Catherine Sévigny and Thank You!
Source : Canine Club Vieux-Montréal
For info : Marlène Savard – 514 237-2007
For immediate release
Press Release
Thanks to
Catherine Sévigny
the Old Montréal
has its dog park
On the Opening Day
as a souvenir,
we gave this poster to Catherine Sévigny
on which appear all the dogs of the founding members of
Founding members:
Martin Audet
Jean-Luc Bouchard
Sonia Boutin
Julie-Emmanuelle Carle Diane Chalifour
Craig Clark
Maurice Cusson
Pascal Fernand
Émile Gaudreau
Christiane Germain
Éric Girard
Nina Gushina
Robert Hack
Ashlynne Lang
Catherine Lemay
Jean Lessard
Marie-France Lévesque
Bryan Mahoney
Nicolas Nélisse
Richard Ouellette
Lysanne Pepin
Sylvie Peronne
Geneviève Robert
Marc-Antoine Roy
Marlène Savard
John Scott
