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Charlotte Fleetwood Designs a Dog Park
in Ronan Park, Dorchester, MA
By April Austin, LINewsletter, Winter 2008-09
A dog park might not be high on many people’s list of vital neighborhood amenities. But a
group of dog owners in Dorchester, together with Landscape Institute alumna Charlotte
Fleetwood, is making the case that such a park would help reduce crime and improve community
cohesion.
Ronan Park, Dorchester MA
Designated dog parks—fenced areas set aside specifically for dogs to frolic off-leash—
are a relatively new idea within city park systems. But with increasing dog ownership in highdensity
urban areas, the need has been growing for reasons of public health and safety.
The proposed dog run site is located within Dorchester’s Ronan Park, an 11-acre area
with a prospect overlooking Dorchester Bay. Administered by the Boston Parks Commission, the
park was originally designed by the firm of Frederick Law Olmsted. Today it includes basketball
courts, playing fields, and a Peace Garden.
Plan detail for the RoDogRun
RoDogRun, as the dog park is called, would occupy a grassy, tree-edged swath of land
below the basketball courts. The approximately 50-by-50-yard space has been largely neglected,
and its out-of-the-way location makes it an undesirable spot after dark. Still, dozens of
residents, including dog owners, access Ronan Park through the entrance from Juliette and
Linden Streets, adjacent to the dog park.
Charlotte Fleetwood was a perfect fit for the task of designing RoDogRun, says Lucia
Droby of Community Outreach Group for Landscape Design (COGDesign). Ronan Park dog
owners first contacted Lucia’s organization seeking a pro-bono designer to create plans that
could be presented to the city. “Her experience dealing with [Rose Kennedy] Greenway issues,
parks officials, and politicians would serve her well,” Lucia says. Charlotte also understood
drainage, a key component of a successful dog park.
Drainage and other construction-related challenges continue to hold appeal for
Charlotte, who was trained in environmental policy analysis and has a Masters degree in city
planning. Her first Landscape Institute class was actually site engineering. After a dozen years
of working her way through the LI design certificate program, she struck on the idea of designing RoDogRun as her final project for graduation in May 2008, with Jean Cavanaugh as
faculty adviser.
Charlotte soon found herself in two parallel universes—academia and the park
service—with their own objectives and timelines. Consulting with Jean, Charlotte was encouraged
to heighten the conceptual aspect of her design by, for example, adding an amphitheater
(not intended to be built) to the hill overlooking the dog park. The Boston Parks Commission,
on the other hand, wanted her to do cost estimates and to keep things as bare bones as possible. While the project
involved a lot of
running back and forth
between Cambridge and
Dorchester, Charlotte
says the real-world
experience added a
component to her final
project that not every
design student is fortunate
to have. “My
project wasn’t theoretical,”
she says.
In addition to providing
recreation for the
animals, dog parks
provide a meeting area
for owners. “When your
dog is sniffing somebody
else’s, you can’t help but
talk,” says local dog
owner and activist Paige
Davis. Because dogs
need to be walked
regularly, foot traffic
increases, as does a
sense of looking out for others that is easier to achieve than if
everyone stays in their homes. This visibility and regular
routine, coupled with a higher police presence, can help displace
illegal activities.
Paige had moved with her husband from Arlington to
Dorchester three years ago in search of a strong community
bond. “What we have here is really unique,” she says. “Maybe it
exists because there’s trouble, but we have people moving in who
aren’t afraid to open their mouths.”
Ronan Park is surrounded by triple deckers that are
home to young and old residents, renters and new condo owners
(most of those without children). The ethnic mix includes Haiti,
Cape Verdean, Dominican, and Caucasian. Paige says that when
problems arise, they’re caused more often by outsiders passing
through or hanging out, rather by than by people who live in the
neighborhood. With the dog park, “People feel a sense that it’s
our park, they have a sense of ownership,” she says.
Support for RoDogRun was strong from the beginning
and came from groups such as Friends of Ronan Park, the police,
politicians, and the surrounding community. Boston City park
officials wanted to see a second sanctioned dog park built (the
first is Peters Park in the South End), but a city ordinance stipulates
that federal grants can’t be used to establish dog parks, so
funding was, and is, problematic. The burden falls squarely on
dog owners to raise the money to build and maintain the park.
The RoDogRun project received $10,000 from the Small
Changes grant program, run by the Mayor’s office, but proponents
estimate they need to raise closer to $30,000 just to build
Phase I. The first part would involve drainage, paths, and fencing.
Phase II would add benches, and later, a shade structure.
Charlotte’s challenge was to create a design using very
little vegetation. Grass would not stand up to so many dogs, so
she explored “paw-friendly” surfaces for large and small dogs,
ones that would provide drainage and be easy to keep clean. (No
decision has been made yet.) Shrubs or other plantings were
impractical, except on the outside of the fence. Still, the area
needed a design concept that made it a distinct space within
Ronan Park.
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www.cogdesign.org
Lucia Droby, Executive Director
14 Buxton Lane
Waltham, MA 02451
(781) 642-6662 / info@cogdesign.org
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