Diamond Bar Dog Park Gets Needed Funding

The rising cost of the incoming dog park at had fiscally conservative Councilman Ron Everett asking if the project should be deferred to a later time.

Everett raised the point at the June 5 council meeting. He had it pulled from the agenda's consent calendar but ended up as the lone voice of concern as the other council members voted to approve the project. Everett declined to submit a vote, instead abstaining.

Tuesday’s night’s approval awards Kormx, Inc. a $96,875 contract for construction of the accessible walkway at the park. The American with Disabilities Act compliant walkway needed to access the from Pantera has raised the cost of the by more than $40,000.

The council also approved a contingency of $9,688 and authorized the expenditure of $235,000 for the development of the dog park.

The original cost of the project was estimated to be about $131,000, staffers said.

“In light of the budget, I have a sensitivity to what the total is now is,” Everett told fellow council members. “That $235,000 is not trivial. And I’m looking to save money or defer money. So my personal opinion is to defer this and or even involve some of the community to take a second look at it.”

But the rest of the council was satisfied enough with the project to vote quickly and without comment.

It had been a year since the council had approved the project. Originally, city planners wanted to install decompose grant walkway. But a civil engineer quickly discovered that storm drainage pipes were located below the area they wanted to locate the walkway.

“When we brought in a civil engineer to evaluate the site, we found that the elevation for the accessible walkway were pretty significant,” said Bob Rose, Community Services Director.

“When I say significant, what I mean is that under ADA federal law, an accessible walkway (needs to be) a maximum of 5 percent (grade level),” he said. “When it’s more than 5 percent, up to 8.33 percent, it requires handrails.”

“We looked at all sorts of considerations for the walkway and it was pretty much settled that the most cost effective way of doing this where we don’t have to dig up pipes and where we don’t lose a lot of the dog park space by putting slopes or ramps or other things that were considered (is this).”

The dog park will be located on 1.35 acres of undeveloped land southeast of Pantera Park. Plans include two enclosures, a 19,400-square-foot area for small dogs less than 25 pounds, the other a 39,400-square-foot area for large dogs 25 pounds or larger. A 6-foot high chain link fence will surround the enclosures. Users will enter and exit through self-closing double gates.