Letters to the Editor – Proposed Dog Park at Emerson Reserve

This is with regard to the Emerson Place Reserve in Rowville.  The existing park at Emerson Place Reserve is beautiful on its own and since it has been recently landscaped with playground equipment, it allows for children to play and adults to exercise alike.

The area around Emerson Reserve already has significantly high traffic, with no car parking facilities nearby, and prone to burglaries and attempted car thefts in the past. As residents of the area, we completely oppose Knox City Council plans for a Dog Park to be included as part of Emerson Reserve, for reasons given below. We therefore request that this petition be taken up with Knox City Council (note that we have already opposed this decision via Knox City Council’s website when Knox City Council had included the proposal in the Knox Newsletter some time ago).

1) To begin with, in the current COVID-19 environment, as we are all in the midst of a pandemic,  it would be rather negligent of Knox City Council to convert part of Emerson Reserve (which is located in a predominantly residential area), into a Dog Park, without consideration for residents living in and around the area due to:

• Negative impacts of animal faeces on human health.  Point to be noted here is that we have noticed pet owners who walk their dogs do not always collect their respective pets’ waste after them and we cannot see a way wherein any wrong doing can be supervised and or corrected at any given point in time.
• With training sessions for managing dog aggression, off-lead dog training and socialisation of dogs, all having being cancelled due to COVID-19, the chances are that there will be more dangerous, menacing and restricted breed dogs frequently visiting the proposed dog park with their owners making the environment dangerous and not safe for children and adults to use.

2) From an individual perspective, there is already a fear of dogs in our family having been through a previous incident in the area with a dog that was not on his leash.

3) In recent times, dog attacks have been on the rise in and around Knox and hence it would be more appropriate to have a dog park in a more industrial area within the City of Knox, away from residential areas, thereby keeping the residents and wider community safe.

4) Using it as a Dog Park would only add to insecurity for residents who live around the park.  Being one of the residents who live around the park, we are concerned about additional vehicle, bikes, cycles and foot traffic in and around Emerson Reserve.

5) An increased amount of visitors coming into Reserve once it includes a Dog Park would add to the activity in the surrounding areas, making it less safe as there would be the increased risk of home and car thefts.

In view of the points raised above, we urge you to please forward the above objection to Knox City Council to include a dog park at Emerson Reserve in Rowville.

Thanking you,

Sincerely,

Candace & Francis Carvalho

Editor’s Note:- This issue is not new, as revealed this month in another letter to the editor, which questioned the use of Emerson Reserve as a dog park in 2018. Cr Darren Pearce stated that there was never a commitment to a community forum and that traffic management will be considered carefully by the Council as part of the park’s development process.