SoMa Neighbors Petition For Dog Space In Victoria Manalo Draves Park

SoMa Neighbors Petition For Dog Space In Victoria Manalo Draves ParkPhotos: Angeline Ubaldo / Hoodline
Angeline Ubaldo
Published on June 22, 2015

Back in January, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department fenced off an athletic field at Victoria Manalo Draves Park at Folsom and Sherman Streets, where many locals brought their dogs to play. A group of SoMa dog owners responded by creating a petition to designate an off-leash dog play area at the park. In two months, the petition has garnered 455 signatures, though the official process to designate a dog park has not yet been initiated.

"It's important to dogs to have an off-leash play and run area, for exercise and fun," said local Judith Vorreuter, who created the petition with fellow SoMa neighbor Lili Balfour. Vorreuter takes Opie, her white pitbull/husky mix, to the park five to six days a week. She says some dog owners even take their dogs to the park two or three times a day. 


According to Vorreuter, many of the dog owners that frequent the park would rather not drive or walk to another SoMa dog park. The other dog parks in SoMa are located in Mission CreekRincon Hill, and SoMa West, all of which are a 20-25 minute walk from Draves Park. 

"It would be nicer to have this as a dog park, because I have to walk to two different parks which are really out of the way just to get her out and running around," said SoMa resident Joshua Osburn, who lives two blocks away from Draves Park, and brings his dog, Sasha, for a walk there every day.

Joshua Osburn and Sasha

But according to Connie Chan, deputy director of public affairs for the Recreation and Parks Department, the field at Draves Park was never intended to allow off-leash dogs in the first place. "While all dogs are welcome in all our parks, they are not allowed to be on athletic fields, especially running off-leash, and this has always applied to the athletic field at Victoria Manalo Draves Park as well," Chan said.

"There is no correlation between the new fence and dogs not being allowed on the athletic field," she stated. As Chan explains, the fence wasn't built to prevent owners from letting their dogs off-leash, but to keep park visitors from getting hit by stray balls from the athletic field.


Regardless of the park's original intentions, Vorreuter said that the main goal of the petition was to make the Parks Department aware of local support for a play area.  "We assume that letting the Parks Department know how many people in the neighborhood would make use of an off-leash fenced area for dogs would be what we needed to do."

When it comes to establishing a dog park, Chan said that there is an official process in place should the community want a dog park. "Dog play areas, just like any other projects in our park system, are often community driven," she said. According to Balfour, "We have been in discussions with the Parks Department, but have not filed the formal document."

Do you support more off-leash dog spaces in SoMa? Let us know in the comments.