Carol Stream carving out dog park with 4-foot fences

Man's best friend will have a place to fetch and run around when a Carol Stream dog park opens this fall.

Plans are moving ahead for the three-acre park on the northwest corner of North Avenue and Kuhn Road following approval of zoning variations and permits by the village board this week.

Officials say plans for the park are the result of community surveys that showed overwhelming support for it.

The park, expected to cost between $100,000 and $150,000, is one part of a $37 million park district improvements plan approved by voters in a referendum last year.

The space will consist of two adjacent fenced in enclosures — a two-acre space for large dogs and a one-acre space for small dogs. The fences will be four feet high.

Residents would need a pass provided by the park district and have their dogs licensed through the village in order to use to park. Dogs would have to be leashed until within the confines of the park area, officials said.

The park will sit on a 20-acre site owned by the Illinois Department of Transportation, which last year granted the park district use of three acres at no cost. A permit for use of the land lasts for five years, but is renewable.

The property includes Klein Creek and an associated floodplain that was acquired by the state to provide areas for stormwater management, which was required when North Avenue was widened, officials said.

Bill Rosenberg, the park district's director of parks and facilities, told village trustees this week that the dog park will sit between North Avenue and a retention pond, but will not be in the floodplain.

Park district officials will be putting the project out to bid soon, and expect the park to open by fall.