Plan for restricting dogs at Ocean Beach has owners howling
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area wants new rules to govern dogs at Ocean Beach and Fort Funston. Photo: Flickr user dglassme
On Ocean Beach, dogs are a sight as ubiquitous as surfers or chilled tourists. But a new plan to lay out rules for where and when canines can roam the strand has dog lovers in an uproar.
“I think it really fails in many respects to be something that people can support. It’s too restrictive,” said Suzanne Valente of the Ocean Beach Dog Owners Group.
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area has proposed a sweeping revision of its rules for where dogs are allowed and where they must be leashed. Park officials say that a big reason for creating the plan is to clarify an amalgam of historical uses, impromptu efforts to protect rare species and exceptions to rules that generally don’t permit dogs in national parks at all.
“Over the years we’re left with a situation right now of confusion, misunderstanding – right now, very few people can tell you where dogs can and can’t go,” said park spokesman Howard Levitt.
One of the core reasons for this confusion is a clash between the way people and dogs have been using the beach, and the mandate of the national park system Ocean Beach is part of. For many decades – perhaps more than a century – Ocean Beach has been a popular spot for people to play and exercise with their dogs. But the GGNRA, a unit of the National Park Service that manages Ocean Beach, Fort Funston and other open spaces, is required to protect the natural resources of its lands from anything that degrades it.
The law that spells out the mission of the NPS to preserve the natural environment requires that “the secretary of the interior shall protect it from uses that destroy the scenic and natural value of the area,” said Amy Meyer of People for a Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Meyer was a key player among the activists who persuaded the federal government to create the GGNRA in 1972.
At Ocean Beach, the GGNRA’s first option for new rules would create an officially recognized area where dogs could run without leashes, from Stairwell 21 on the Ocean Beach seawall – opposite the Beach Chalet – to the north end of the beach near the Cliff House.
The environmental-impact statement of the GGNRA Dog Management Plan contains more than 2,000 pages. Photo: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin
The proposal also contains a range other options, from allowing dogs access to the entire beach with leashes required south of Stairwell 21, to allowing dogs access to the beach only north of Stairwell 21 and only if they are on a leash.
It’s not just Ocean Beach where the rules could change. The GGNRA’s proposal covers the entire park, including Fort Funston, Lands End and Sutro Heights, as well as Crissy Field and lands in Marin and San Mateo counties.
Valente, however, believes that effective management of dogs in the GGNRA requires a focus on behavior, not geography. Instead of requiring leashes in some places and banning dogs in other parts of what she sees as an urban recreation area, she said park managers should look toward ticketing dog owners who don’t clean up their pets’ waste and those who let their pooches harass other park visitors and wildlife.
“The conflict is not just this bird, or this beach,” said Valente. “I think the bigger conflict … is the sense of, what’s the legislative intent” of the creation of the GGNRA and San Francisco’s decision to turn over Ocean Beach and other city lands to the Park Service.
“The emphasis was on outdoor recreation, and the assurances were made that historical recreational use would be honored.”
But Meyer objects to the contention that the GGNRA is an urban park, with the exception of some relatively small areas.
“This is not an urban national park,” she said, save for the Richmond District side of Ocean Beach, parts of Crissy Field and areas around Fort Mason. “That’s a tiny percentage. The presidio is suburban, and the rest of it is rural.”
On Saturday the GGNRA will hold a meeting about the proposed Dog Management Plan, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at San Francisco State University’s Seven Hills Conference Center on State Drive. Meetings also are planned for March 7 at Fort Mason in San Francisco and March 9 in Pacifica.
Saturday’s event will not be a meeting with podiums and microphones, Levitt said. Rather, it will use an “open house” format where people can directly question GGNRA representatives about the proposal before they give written comments about it – whether at Saturday’s meeting, at another event, in a letter or online.
The entire proposed Dog Management Plan is available at some local library branches, and online at the National Park Service website.
As of March 4, the Park Service has extended its deadline for comments from the public, pushing the comment period back from April 14 to May 29.
To comment about the proposed Dog Management Plan, visit one of the open-house meetings; mail comments to Frank Dean, General Superintendent, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Building 201, Fort Mason, San Francisco, CA 94123-0022; or comment online.
The GGNRA also has an information line at (415) 561-4728, but it will not accept comments on the plan on this line.
As a senior citizen who has walked/jogged on San Francisco’s beaches for 40 years, I strongly oppose the GGNRA’s preferred alternative. There is little justification for such drastic action. By the GGNRA’s own statistics, less than 1/10 of 1% of dog visits result in a citation. So either dogs are quite well-behaved or the GGNRA cannot enforce the laws already in place. In either case, it makes no sense to create a new set of laws. In fact, people cause 98% of the problems according to the same statistics. So perhaps all people should be banned.
The threatened snowy plover is also not a valid reason for banning or limiting dogs. The GGNRA does not like to admit it, but most environmental studies (Hatch 1996 and 2006, 2009/2010 Golden Gate Audubon Society, Warren 2007, Forrest and Cassady St. Clair 2006) are inconclusive or show evidence that dogs do not bother the Plovers. And finally, since the Snowy Plover does not nest at our beaches, studies have concluded that we have no real ability to influence their success or failure.
In my opinion, the GGNRA’s real goal is to manage all of its lands as if they were wilderness areas and to eliminate recreation all together. People who own dogs and enjoy exercising them off-leash are being targeted now. Next it will be another group. People with children perhaps.
“This is not an urban national park,” Amy Meyer said, save for the Richmond District side of Ocean Beach, parts of Crissy Field and areas around Fort Mason. “That’s a tiny percentage. The presidio is suburban, and the rest of it is rural.”
From http://www.sfdog.org/node/2
Nearly all of the GGNRA land in San Francisco was once city parkland. In November 1973, San Franciscans voted on whether to turn over 500 acres of city parkland – Fort Funston, Ocean Beach, Lands End – to the GGNRA.
In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle on October 25th, a few weeks before the election, William J. Whalen, superintendent of the national recreation area, said the GGNRA “intends to preserve the general character and present use of the various parks that could be affected by passage of Proposition F.” Residents were assured there would be no change in allowed recreational usage just because the land would be in the GGNRA. Proposition F passed.
Still, City officials worried about the loss of local control of the parklands. A Memorandum of Understanding between the City and County of San Francisco and the United States dated April 29, 1975 requires the General Superintendent of the GGNRA to “formally notify and consult with the Department of City Planning on all proposed construction plans… or substantial alteration of the natural environment” of the City’s parklands that were being transferred to the GGNRA. The MOU set forth a process for San Francisco to convey its “agreement, disagreement or suggested modification of the proposed construction plans”. The MOU adds that the “General Superintendent [of the GGNRA] shall make every effort to accommodate the City’s recommendations.” http://www.sfdog.org/sites/default/files/GGNRA_MOU_SF.pdf
San Franciscans deeded their beachfront park lands to the GGNRA because they believed that, as promised by GGNRA officials at the time, recreational uses would be continued and the City would be consulted on future changes within the GGNRA. Unfortunately, the GGNRA has not lived up to its promises, and has made major changes in park usage over the years, all without following up on its promised pledge to consult with the City.
Reflecting a citywide desire to maintain recreational uses of land in the GGNRA, the San Francisco City Charter amendment passed by the voters in 1973 (former section 7.403-1(a)) included a provision that required that the deed transferring City-owned park lands to the National Park Service have the restriction that those lands were to be reserved by the NPS “in perpetuity for recreation or park purposes with a right of reversion upon breach of said restriction.” In other words, if the GGNRA should ever change recreational access to the lands once owned by San Francisco, the City reserved the right to take back the land. The deed that transferred Fort Funston, Ocean Beach, and other City-owned park land to the GGNRA does indeed contain the following clause: “to hold only for so long as said real property is reserved and used for recreation and park purposes.”
The biggest problem is that the rules aren’t enforced today. Changing the rules isn’t going to help.