St. Albert’s animal bylaw won’t be changed for the time being, after council unanimously voted to take no action on administrative recommendations.
A report on proposed changes, presented at the Jan. 9 meeting, suggested the off-leash area program isn’t working well and recommends several changes including removing 15 of the 20 existing off-leash areas in the city.
Chris Jardine, manager of community and protective services, presented the report to council and said the recommendations are based on public feedback, including a statistically valid survey conducted in June 2016.
The result of consultation is, in a nutshell, that changing the animal bylaw is a “no-win situation.”
“Half the community feels one way and half the community feels the other way, with very polarizing perspectives,” he said. “We’re siding on the side of safety.”
The city’s animal bylaw came into effect Sept. 1, 2014, with one of the most significant changes being that dogs would no longer be allowed to be off leash except for in 20 designated off-leash areas. Previously, off-leash dogs were permitted nearly everywhere in the city.
Policing services manager Aaron Giesbrecht reported that since the bylaw came into effect, there hasn’t been any significant change in the number of dog-bite incidents reported in the city – roughly 25 per year of a dog biting a human and 25 per year of a dog biting another dog.
“Those numbers aren’t necessarily reflective of the incidents happening in the dog parks,” he said. “A lot of those things happen on private property, or close to private property where the dog’s rushing out.”
Consultation since the bylaw was enacted has revealed a split in residents who want to see more off-leash opportunities and those who want to see fewer.
According to the survey, 61 per cent of people were concerned about off-leash locations near playgrounds, 60 per cent were concerned about proximity to schools, 51 per cent were concerned about proximity to sport fields, and 41 per cent were concerned about off-leash areas too close to trails.
But on the other hand, 77 per cent of respondents didn’t want to see any off-leash areas removed, which Jardine described as a significant “disconnect” in the survey results. This prompted the administrative recommendation to err on the side of safety by removing off-leash areas that come too close to playgrounds, schools and trails.
“As much as we tried to come up with easy answers or answers that are highly supported by the majority, the reality is there isn’t,” Jardine said. “This is no win. No matter what we do, there are going to be people unhappy with what we do.”
Coun. Cathy Heron, who was the only councillor to vote against the 2014 bylaw changes, put forward a motion to simply accept the report for information rather than act on any of the recommendations.
She said the changes would be over the top, and would like to see a more reasonable balance, especially with respect to concerns about proximity to the trail system.
“The trail system in St. Albert is something we’re very proud of, and it goes everywhere,” she said. “So if you’re including the trail system, we’re not going to have (off-leash areas) anywhere.”
Coun. Tim Osborne agreed, saying rather than changing the bylaw again the city should do more to enforce the existing bylaw.
“I think where the focus needs to be is enforcing penalties against owners who don’t have their dogs under control,” he said. “The people who have pets that are causing the problems aren’t going to be following the bylaw regardless.”
Coun. Cam MacKay said the smart decision at this point would be to give residents more time to adjust, rather than continually meddling with the bylaw.
“Sometimes it’s better to not make change for change’s sake,” he said.
While council opted to take no action on the bylaw at this point, the possibility remains that a councillor will choose to have this brought back to council in the future.
