Las Flores Creek Dog Park Voted Down

MALIBU, CA — The Malibu Parks and Recreation Commission voted down a fenced-in dog park at Las Flores Creek Park because the proposed site is too small.

The city's only dog park is located in Trancas Canyon Park, and residents of eastern Malibu have long been requesting a dog park closer to home. In Oct. 2019, Parks and Rec requested that city staff research the possibility of creating a dog park at Las Flores, and in Jan. 2020, staff returned with a report saying that the area was suitable, and could be expanded.

The park was estimated to cost anywhere from $17,000 to $57,000, and the money would come from the General Fund or allocated park funds from Measure A.

However, commissioners were not impressed upon a Feb. 17 re-examination. Commissioner Robert Wells worried that the dog park wouldn't bring in any new visitors, while commissioner Georgia Goldfarb worried that it would, and this would result in environmental problems.

The park contains several large protect native oak trees that would have be trimmed back, and a biological assessment would need to be made by a biologist since the park is near an Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area.

Commission Chair Suzanne Guldimann thought it was simply too small. Guldimann said that her research found that the minimum standard for a dog park is 20,000 square feet, while Las Flores is only 3,000 square feet.

"There is no way that this itsy-bitsy, teen-weeny thing that's less than a tenth of an acre is going to be sufficient," she said. "It's like putting a baseball diamond in someone's living room."

Commissioners instead expressed interest in the Ioki property or the proposed La Paz Ranch project in the Civic Center.