Evanston officials are throwing in the dog towel on approving a disability access ramp at the city’s only designated dog beach, vowing instead to close off the area for public use beginning Dec. 1 until further notice.
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The closure comes after City Council committee members failed to approve, yet again, a ramp design plan for the dog beach that meets Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. The beach has been out of ADA compliance since it reopened in 2022, despite numerous attempts by the city to construct a permanent ramp.
Fears over a potential lawsuit and other legal vulnerabilities propelled the Administration & Public Works Committee to vote to shut down the beach at their Sept. 28 meeting, giving time for officials to seek new proposals for the ramp at a cheaper price point.
“I feel terrible that this has taken so long,” Ald. Clare Kelly, 1st, voiced to committee members and attendees of the Monday meeting, some of whom previously aired grievances about the beach excluding disabled residents.
With the dog beach located in her ward, Kelly has been at the helm of ramp discussions and design vetoes, repeatedly taking issue with high cost and “unnecessarily elaborate” proposals brought forward by contractors, she told committee members when the ramp was last up for discussion Aug. 24.
“I did not want to see anybody with a walker walk three quarters the length of a football field with their dog to get onto the beach and then cut through the breakwater…I knew we could do better by our disabled community and by our entire community. So this has been really difficult.”
“The dog beach, as it stands, is illegal,” said Murphy Monroe, a commissioner for the city’s ADA compliance and disability access group.
“There is no other entity in Evanston that we would allow to stay open if it didn’t allow a protected minority class to enter.”
Located just south of Clark Street Beach in Evanston, the dog beach has faced chronic challenges over the years with rising water levels in Lake Michigan and a lack of breakwall protection.
While there are other beaches across the city accessible to people with disabilities, none allow off-leash roaming, according to city Engineer Laura Biggs.
After unanimously rejecting Chicago-based contractor John Keno & Company’s latest ramp design iteration — an $863,850 proposal, which was more than $113,000 over budget — committee members moved to close the beach Dec. 1 and work to formalize a contract for a lower-costing ramp by that same time frame.
Evanston Parks & Recreation Director Audrey Thompson told committee members Monday the dog beach does not formally close for the winter, but typically shuts down intermittently due to ice and inclement weather.
Aldermen did not specify when the beach would likely reopen, but said it was unlikely to occur before an executed contract for the ramp’s build is put in place, per Evanston legal counsel Alex Ruggie’s advice.
While calls for a request for proposal (RFP) to construct a more affordable ramp by that deadline would demonstrate that the city was working towards a solution, Ruggie clarified that the best legal argument is to have an executed contract before a potential reopening.
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According to city documents, several accessibility complaints have been reported to the City of Evanston within the last year regarding the beach’s lack of a ramp, but a formal lawsuit has yet to be filed for noncompliance.
“I’m worried about the city’s exposure,” said Ald. Shawn Iles, 3rd, during the meeting via Zoom. “It’s been a long time, four years, that we’ve been working on this.”
Ruggie added that the federal government typically allows for a two-year grace period to meet ADA requirements, but the city has well surpassed the legal limit.
“[Evanston] continue[s] to make forward progress, so the city would argue that we are moving towards compliance,” Ruggie said in regards to the threat of a lawsuit.
“I think as soon as the city could be in compliance would be the best option.”
With a request for proposal issued by December, Kelly said it’s reasonable for the public to expect the beach to reopen by May 2027.
The city’s Public Works Director Edgar Cano said at the Monday meeting he would work with Kelly and officials to present a lower cost and less robust proposal, but that it would likely come after the Dec. 1 closure date.
A Sept. 28 memo from Cano and Evanston engineer Biggs said that staff aims to bring back a proposal that… “minimizes shoreline hardening through the use of a pier-style structure.”
Officials will aim for an installation by summer 2027, the memo confirmed. Until then, the dog beach is likely to remain closed.