The city's population grew by 200,000. Its parks budget doubled. A new off-leash area opens in late 2026 — the first since 2009. This is what the data says, and doesn't say, about why.
The simplest way to see the squeeze: divide Seattle's population by the number of off-leash areas. In 2010, one OLA served about 43,500 residents. In 2025, it serves 58,300 — a 34% increase in "crowding" despite no corresponding change in OLA supply.
Trust for Public Land's 2025 ParkScore measures dog parks per 100,000 residents across the 100 largest U.S. cities. Seattle ranks well below every major West Coast peer. Portland has more than three times Seattle's dog-park density.
Two things are true at once. Yes, it is a money problem: Seattle cannot simply buy its way to a Portland-sized OLA system. Seattle is dense and land-scarce; the parcels large enough for real off-leash areas are either already parks or already worth more to the city as housing, services, or infrastructure (see the opinion page for why that trade-off is defensible). And at the same time: it is not a budget-total problem. Seattle is one of the best-funded municipal park systems in the country, with $418 per resident per year in TPL's investment category. The issue is the allocation of what's already there: of Seattle's substantial parks spend, the slice dedicated to off-leash access has been under one-tenth of one percent for most of the last decade. We can't build our way out. We can allocate our way to a materially better outcome, and we haven't.
This is the chart that most directly challenges the "we are investing" narrative. Seattle Parks and Recreation's total budget has nearly doubled since 2018. The specific Park District funding initiative dedicated to OLA maintenance stayed flat at $100,000/year from 2016 through 2020. See Budget Deep Dive for the full picture.
The honest telling: Seattle is putting meaningfully more money toward OLAs now than it ever has. The Park District's "Maintaining Parks and Facilities" budget line (BSL BC-PR-50000, which funds OLA and P-Patch improvements) has grown roughly 11× since 2019, and Cycle 2 added $3.46 million in capital for new construction. See Budget Deep Dive for chart-level detail.
Seattle famously has more dogs than children. Estimates for the dog population range from 150,000 (conservative, frequently cited — Seattle Humane, Cascade PBS coverage) to over 400,000 (per the SPR 2023–24 OLA Expansion Study). Even using the low estimate and the most recent child population, dogs outnumber kids roughly 1.4 to 1.
The "14 OLAs" number also flatters Seattle — four of those parks hold 78% of total OLA acreage, and half of the city's OLAs are under one acre. Kinnear Park's OLA (the closest to Queen Anne) is 0.1 acres. The dog-park size standards in Part II quantify what "too small" means.
All values below are the exact figures from Trust for Public Land's 2025 ParkScore methodology, except Vancouver BC (not in the U.S. dataset).
| City | Population | Parkland acres | % city area | Dog parks | Per 100K | $/capita | ParkScore rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seattle, WA | 816,600 | 6,662 | 12.6% | 14 | 1.82 | $418 | 8 |
| Portland, OR | 660,000 | 13,029 | 15.8% | 38 | 5.74 | $274 | 9 |
| San Francisco, CA | 870,000 | 6,398 | 21.4% | 42 | 5.03 | $561 | 6 |
| Vancouver, BC (est.) | 662,000 | ~3,000 ha | ~11% | 36 | 5.44 | n/a | n/a |
| Austin, TX | 1,025,000 | 18,437 | 9.0% | 13 | 1.28 | $211 | 54 |
| Boise, ID | 240,000 | ~3,400 | ~10% | 18 | 7.60 | n/a | n/a |
| Year | Population | OLAs | Residents / OLA | SPR budget (all funds) | OLA improvement $ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 608,660 | 14 | 43,476 | — | — |
| 2016 | 704,400 | 14 | 50,314 | ~$156M | $100,000 |
| 2017 | 724,745 | 14 | 51,767 | $163M (ops only) | $100,000 |
| 2019 | 753,700 | 14 | 53,836 | $247.7M | $160,757 |
| 2020 | 737,015 | 14 | 52,644 | $261.9M | $338,000 |
| 2021 | 733,400 | 14 | 52,386 | $228.1M (COVID) | $346,680 |
| 2023 | 779,200 | 14 | 55,657 | $328.2M | $475,142 |
| 2024 | 797,700 | 14 | 56,979 | $320.7M | $614,343 |
| 2025 | 816,600 | 14 | 58,329 | $339.4M | $1,829,717 |
| 2026 (proj.) | ~832,000 | 16 | 52,000 | $506.9M (proposed) | $1,845,706 +$3.1M capital |
Dog park count methodology. Trust for Public Land and City of Seattle both count 14 OLAs. Definitions of "dog park" vary slightly between cities — Portland counts unfenced designated off-leash areas, Vancouver BC counts 36 including time-restricted unfenced areas, and Seattle counts only fully-fenced or clearly-delineated sites. Adjusting for these definitional differences doesn't meaningfully close the per-capita gap.
OLA improvement budget. The Park District's "Maintaining Parks & Facilities" Budget Summary Level (BC-PR-50000) funds both dog off-leash areas and community P-Patch gardens. The exact OLA-only share is not broken out in the budget books. During Cycle 1, SPR publicly stated the OLA portion was $100,000/year; post-2023 OLA/P-Patch split is not disclosed separately.
SPR budget comparisons. The original user data cited a 2018 SPR budget of $168.3M, which is consistent with General Fund + core operating sources but excludes capital. The 2019 Actuals of $247.7M is an all-funds figure and is the methodologically consistent baseline. Using the all-funds figure, SPR's budget nearly doubled from 2019 ($247.7M) to 2025 ($339.4M proposed).
Dog population estimates. Seattle does not universally license dogs, so dog-population figures are estimates. The "150,000 dogs" figure is from Seattle Humane / Cascade PBS and has been the commonly-cited figure for over a decade. SPR's own 2023 OLA Expansion Study describes "exponential growth" and cites estimates ranging from 187,000 to "upwards of 400,000." The 150K number used here is the conservative floor.
Vancouver BC. Because Canada isn't in the TPL ParkScore, Vancouver's data comes from its own Park Board documents (36 OLAs per the "People, Parks & Dogs Strategy") and current population estimates. Vancouver does not publish OLA-specific budget data in a format comparable to Seattle's.
Boise. Boise has topped TPL's dog park category for four consecutive years (7.6 per 100K in 2024). It is not a true peer city in size or density, but is included as the national-best benchmark.
Playground count. Seattle's 157 playgrounds is from the TPL 2025 ParkScore data. This includes playgrounds in parks and schoolyards with joint-use agreements.
Seattle Parks & Recreation budget books (2021, 2023–24, 2025–26 proposed) · Seattle Park District Cycle 1 (2015–2020) and Cycle 2 (2023–2028) financial plans · SPR "People, Dogs, and Parks Plan" (2017) · SPR "Off-Leash Area Expansion Study" (2023–2024) · Washington State Office of Financial Management April 1 official population estimates · Trust for Public Land 2025 ParkScore Index (city-level PDFs) · Vancouver Park Board "People, Parks & Dogs Strategy" (2017) · Citizens for Off-Leash Areas (COLA) Seattle · Parkways (SPR blog) · Seattle Dog Spot · Cascade PBS · KUOW · The Urbanist · West Seattle Blog