What works, and what Seattle hasn't tried.
Parts I and II document the supply gap and the access gap. Part III looks forward through three questions: which of Seattle's existing off-leash areas (OLAs) function well and why, what shared-use looks like in cities that have run it for decades, and what public land outside Seattle Parks' portfolio could host off-leash space without a new Park District dollar.
What works
Three Seattle OLAs that consistently draw community praise, and the governance and design they share.
Section 3bShared-use
The off-leash-hours model. How New York, Boston, and Chicago run time-windowed access in existing parks.
Section 3cNon-SPR land
WSDOT, Seattle City Light, Port of Seattle — public land SPR does not manage but Seattle hosts.
Finding 03aWhat works: three Seattle OLAs that draw sustained community support.
The Enforcement data shows where the system is failing. It is equally worth asking where it is working. Three of Seattle's 14 OLAs have visible organizational structure behind them — a site-specific 501(c)(3) at Magnuson, system-wide stewardship by COLA at Genesee, and a recent Park District-funded renovation at Westcrest. Each card below documents the governance model and what the public record shows; usage and satisfaction data are flagged as gaps where they are missing.
Magnuson — the volunteer-steward model
Magnuson is a structural outlier on 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 parallel in Seattle to the Portland or San Francisco "dog park friends" model in which a local nonprofit partners with the parks department.
The 248 citations logged at Magnuson 2014–2019 (Enforcement top-20) read in context: Magnuson is the biggest park with the biggest footprint, most citations occur on the non-OLA portions (athletic fields, shoreline outside the fenced OLA), and MOLG's presence raises both compliance inside the OLA and reporting of violations outside it. The park draws traffic from across the region, not just the surrounding neighborhoods.
Genesee — the COLA-steward model
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 has held up: small-dog-separated area, multiple gates, drainage that handles Seattle winters. The 130 citations logged there 2014–2019 include many from the larger Genesee Park & Playfield (athletic fields) rather than the OLA itself.
Westcrest — the recent-investment model
Westcrest is an example of a funded OLA renovation. The 2021–2022 Park District renovation addressed drainage, erosion control, access/parking, and accessibility 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); ongoing stewardship is credited to COLA.
Westcrest's 86 enforcement-data citations 2014–2019 are lower than those of the four biggest host parks, and the site generates sustained community advocacy. Per-acre, Westcrest operates closer to Magnuson's scale than to Kinnear's 0.1 acres.
Each has a named community partner, a specific governance structure, and enough physical area to absorb demand: Magnuson at 9.0 acres, Westcrest at 8.4, Genesee at 2.7 — compared to Kinnear at 0.124. The access story in Part II is about distance; the design story here is about size plus stewardship.
Finding 03bShared-use: the off-leash-hours model in peer cities.
Several U.S. cities designate time-windowed off-leash access in existing parks rather than building new fenced OLAs. The policy has been in formal operation in New York City since 2007, and in functional operation for roughly two decades. Adoption in Seattle would expand access without new capital expenditure.
New York City — formal since 2007, functional longer
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. 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 boundary condition for interpreting the model. What is in the public record: the policy has not been rolled back, has not produced the liability outcomes that were initially feared, and is cited by secondary sources as a working example of shared-use.
Boston, Chicago, and variants
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 14 OLAs cover 11.7% of residents within a 10-minute walk (Part II Finding 01). Time-windowed access to existing large parks — Green Lake, Volunteer Park, Lincoln Park, Seward Park, Discovery Park — would change the coverage figure without the multi-year capital timelines of building new dedicated OLAs. The Opinion page takes a position on this; the mechanism itself is a matter of peer-city record.
Sources · NYC Parks Dog Friendly Areas · NYC Parks 2007 press release
Finding 03cNon-SPR land: public space SPR does not manage.
Seattle's OLA supply is bounded by Seattle Parks & Recreation's real-estate portfolio. Significant acreage of other public land inside 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 raised this in its comments on SPR's 2023 Off-Leash Area Expansion Study: the study did not consider non-SPR public land.
WSDOT — state highway right-of-way
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 portion is landscaped setback, substantially fenced, and physically distant from active traffic. I-5 Colonnade — an existing Seattle OLA — sits under I-5 on WSDOT land, a functioning precedent.
Seattle City Light — transmission corridors and utility property
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 — attributes compatible with off-leash use relative to most other non-Parks categories of public land.
Port of Seattle — waterfront and industrial-adjacent
The Port of Seattle owns substantial waterfront property. Most is industrial and security-restricted, but parcels at the edges — landscape buffer, parking, unused waterfront — may be compatible with off-leash use within the Port's operational constraints.
Seattle's multi-agency public-land footprint is larger than SPR's portfolio alone. Framed as "where can SPR build a new OLA on SPR land?" the answer is a multi-decade capital cycle. Framed as "where inside city limits is there public land where dogs could be off-leash without a new capital project?" the answer involves three agencies SPR has not historically partnered with on this use. The Opinion page argues for the second framing; this page documents the land.
Sources · SPR Off-Leash Area Expansion Study (2023–24) · COLA comments on the Expansion Study · WSDOT · Seattle City Light · Port of Seattle
Part III · closingOpen lines for primary source material.
Part III is the forward-looking half of this project. The three sections above sketch each direction and name the specific primary sources that would strengthen them. Materials on any of the three — Magnuson stewardship records, NYC/Boston/Chicago operational data, or WSDOT/City Light/Port recreational-use policies — can be submitted via the project issue tracker.
The Opinion & Recommendation page is where the policy argument lives. This page documents the case studies and implementation options. The two are meant to be read together.