Parts I and II document the supply gap and the access gap. Part III looks forward: three questions worth pressing on. Which of Seattle's existing OLAs actually function well, and why? What does shared-use look like in cities that have run it for decades? And what public land outside Seattle Parks' portfolio could host off-leash space without a single new Park District dollar?
The enforcement data on Enforcement shows where the system is failing. It is equally worth asking where the system is working. Three of Seattle's 14 OLAs consistently turn up in community praise, appear on visitor "best-of" lists, and generate sustained volunteer participation. Each has a different organizational structure behind it.
Magnuson is a structural outlier on every dimension: land area, physical features (shoreline, gravel paths, woods), and governance. Magnuson Off-Leash Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that raises donations, runs volunteer maintenance days, and partners formally with Seattle Parks. It is the closest thing Seattle has to the Portland or San Francisco “dog park friends” model where a local nonprofit partners with the parks department.
The 248 citations logged at Magnuson 2014–2019 (Enforcement top-20) need to be read in context: Magnuson is the biggest park with the biggest footprint, most citations happen on the non-OLA portions (athletic fields, shoreline outside the fenced OLA), and MOLG's presence increases both compliance inside the OLA and reporting of violations outside it. The park draws traffic from across the region, not just the surrounding neighborhoods — a pattern you'd expect a nine-acre destination OLA to generate.
COLA is the system-wide advocacy and stewardship group for Seattle's OLAs, and Genesee is one of the sites where COLA's volunteer stewardship is most visible. COLA organized the 1996 resolution that created the year-long OLA pilot (Magnuson opened as the first site on June 15, 1996) and the 1997 City Council vote that made OLAs permanent. The organization has held formal memoranda with Seattle Parks for most of the intervening decades and steward-volunteers continue to show up at Genesee, Westcrest, and other OLAs. Where MOLG is site-specific to Magnuson, COLA works across the whole system.
Genesee's physical design choices have held up: small-dog-separated area, multiple gates, drainage that handles Seattle winters, and the 130 citations logged there 2014–2019 include many from the larger Genesee Park & Playfield (athletic fields) rather than the OLA itself.
Westcrest is what happens when Seattle actually funds an OLA renovation. The 2021–2022 Park District renovation addressed drainage, erosion control, access/parking, and accessibility improvements after seven months of closure, reopening June 10, 2022. Scope was maintenance-driven, not a full rebuild: rock-lined swales, piping and outfalls, sediment traps, regraded high-use areas, and accessible pathways. Community input came through the Highland Park Action Committee (HPAC), with ongoing stewardship credited to COLA.
It is also the demand case for capital investment: Westcrest's 86 enforcement-data citations 2014–2019 are lower than the four biggest host parks, and the site generates persistent community advocacy rather than persistent enforcement pressure. Per-acre, Westcrest is doing closer to what Magnuson does on nine acres than what Kinnear does on 0.1.
Several American cities solve the supply problem without building a single new fenced OLA: they designate time-windowed off-leash access in existing parks. The policy has been in formal operation in New York City since 2007, and in functional operation for roughly two decades. If adopted in Seattle, it would expand access dramatically without new capital expenditure.
New York's current Dog Friendly Areas policy designates specific parks (or sub-areas within parks) where dogs may be off-leash between 9pm and 9am. NYC Parks maintains the official list of Dog-Friendly Areas and off-leash-hours parks. The formalization happened in 2007 via a 2007 NYC Parks rulemaking action; the operational pattern predated formalization by a decade or more.
As of April 2026, no public post-2018 longitudinal evaluation of the policy's outcomes is searchable — a pass-3 audit finding that is worth treating as a boundary condition rather than an endorsement. What is in the public record: the policy has not been rolled back, has not produced the feared liability outcomes, and is cited by secondary sources as a working example of shared-use.
Boston and Chicago each run variants of shared-use access. Chicago's Dog-Friendly Areas (DFAs) are closer to Seattle's fenced-dedicated model than to NYC's time-windowed shared-use, but Chicago also allows specific park areas to operate on an off-leash basis during defined hours. Boston's approach is less formalized but includes documented time-windowed use at specific parks.
Seattle's OLA supply is bounded by Seattle Parks & Recreation's real-estate portfolio. It does not have to be. Significant acreage of other public land inside Seattle city limits — WSDOT right-of-way, Seattle City Light transmission corridors, Port of Seattle property — is, under current rules, unused for off-leash recreation. COLA flagged this in its comments on SPR's 2023 Off-Leash Area Expansion Study: SPR did not consider non-SPR public land.
The Washington State Department of Transportation manages land adjacent to every state-numbered road in the city. Some of that land is unusable (active lanes, on-ramps), but a significant amount is landscaped setback, substantially fenced, and physically distant from active traffic. I-5 Colonnade — an existing Seattle OLA — is literally under I-5 on WSDOT land, demonstrating the principle.
Seattle City Light owns transmission corridors running across the city. Several already host informal recreational use (walking trails, community gardens). These are typically fenced, signed, and maintained on a predictable schedule, which is closer to “compatible with off-leash use” than almost any other non-Parks category of public land.
The Port of Seattle owns substantial waterfront property. Most is industrial and security-restricted, but there are parcels at the edges — landscape buffer, parking, unused waterfront — where off-leash use could be compatible with the Port's operational constraints.
Part III is the forward-looking half of this project. The three sections above are drafts: substantive enough to sketch the shape of each argument, honest about where the primary-source research still needs to land. If you have materials on any of the three — Magnuson stewardship records, NYC/Boston/Chicago operational data, or WSDOT/City Light/Port recreational-use policies — the contact line on the Overview page is the fastest way in.
The Opinion & Recommendation page is where the policy argument lives. This page is where the case studies and implementation options sit. The two are meant to be read together.