By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
For Sea Isle City’s dogs, it can be a little ruff, er, rough, getting the exercise they need in the summer.
Dogs are prohibited on the beaches and oceanfront Promenade during the summer tourism season, so the canines and their owners usually are out walking along the streets and sidewalks to stretch their legs.
But Sea Isle is making plans to give the four-legged denizens their own playground by building the city’s first dog park.
In a crucial step for the project, City Council is expected at its meeting Tuesday to approve a resolution authorizing an application to the Cape May County Open Space Board for a grant to help finance the dog park.
A copy of the resolution attached to the Council agenda doesn’t specify the amount of the grant that will be sought. The city’s five-year capital plan estimates the cost of the dog park at $200,000.
“Sea Isle will have a dog park,” Mayor Leonard Desiderio said reassuringly in an interview in June.
After considering a number of possible locations, the city has settled on an area in the north end of town on Landis Avenue near Seventh Street for the project.
Knowing that many families choose their vacation destination based on its pet-friendly reputation, Sea Isle has been looking to build a dog park for years.
A communitywide survey conducted in 2015 included responses from local residents urging the city to create more recreation attractions, including a dog park. About 40 percent of the approximately 3,000 respondents to the survey supported a dog park.
Council’s resolution says that the city “recognizes the need for a facility for property owners to be able to exercise their dogs.”
During the quiet offseason months, the city lifts its ban of dogs on the beaches, giving canines and their owners a chance to get out and frolic on the wide-open shoreline.
But come summer, the vacationers take over the beaches and dogs lose their sandy playground. Without a place to call their own, dogs and their owners usually are out walking along the streets and sidewalks in the summer for exercise.
Desiderio and his daughter, Carmela, visited dog parks in Ocean City, Wildwood, Upper Township and Egg Harbor Township for some ideas on amenities that would make Sea Isle’s canines and their owners happy.
Sea Isle’s dog park will be fenced in for safety and divided into separate sections for small dogs and big ones, Desiderio said in the June interview.
A dog lover himself, the mayor and his family have a 2-year-old shih tzu named Bruno.
The city has not yet announced the timetable for building the dog park, but Desiderio indicated he would like to have it completed in time for the summer of 2022.
Sea Isle is hoping that the Cape May County Open Space Board will help fund the project. As part of the grant application, the city must commit to the long-term maintenance of the dog park, according to the Council resolution.
The city already has a relationship with the open space board for recreation projects. This year, the board provided the money for Sea Isle’s nearly $1 million fishing pier and kayak launch site that opened May 1 on the bayfront near 60th Street.
The city-owned property that would be the site of the dog park is located next to the wetlands and away from any homes. Sea Isle is asking the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for permission to build part of the dog park closer to the wetlands to make it larger, but not actually on them, Desiderio said.
Parking was another consideration why the city decided to build the dog park on Landis Avenue near Seventh Street. Two new parking lots were built in the same area in 2019 as part of a restriping plan to make the Landis Avenue corridor safer for pedestrians and bicyclists. Pet owners using the dog park would be able to use the same parking lots.
