A new middle school in Florida will lose proposed athletic fields, but the surrounding community will gain a state-of-the-art, five-pen dog park.
The parks department in Boynton Beach had been working with the Palm Beach County school district to provide the middle school with athletic fields. Those talks fell apart due to a lack of funding, causing the parks department to replace the athletic fields with plans for a dog park.
The middle school athletic fields would have included a baseball field, a softball field and a track, according to Florida Headline News.
School district spokesman Larry Clawson said it’s premature to discuss what the new middle school will do for athletic fields, saying that a decision will be made “at some point in the future.”
Area communities have been pushing the parks department for a dog park since 2017, when a petition signed by 1,000 residents was presented to parks officials.
“This is great news for dog owners in all the surrounding communities in west Boynton,” Ira Bromberg, who was involved in the committee that met with the parks department, told Florida Headline News. “Many of the residents in the retirement communities as well as the family communities have dogs. We have been waiting patiently for a dog park for a long time."
