Chantilly Park

Chantilly Park is a Mecklenburg County park, so the county’s rules are the park’s rules. The Parks & Recreation Facilities Ordinance makes it unlawful “to have pets in the areas of County parks where pets are expressly prohibited,” which leaves dogs allowed across the rest of the grounds. Leashed. The county animal ordinance requires physical restraint anywhere off your own property, and off-leash is confined to the county’s designated dog parks. Chantilly isn’t one of them. Nearest is Ninth Street Dog Park, about three miles northwest in Fourth Ward.

Access is at the south end of Wyanoke Avenue. The county’s facility record for the park lists zero parking spaces, no restrooms, and no ADA compliance. Hours run Sun–Sat, “Daylight,” and the ordinance makes it unlawful to stay past a park’s posted closing time.

What the county records on the ground: a picnic shelter, a playground with swings, a volleyball court, a table tennis table, and a multipurpose field. Park and Recreation’s greenway rules, the rule set the new trail will carry, put pets “on leash 6 ft. or shorter” and keep them out of “playgrounds or athletic field areas.”

The lower part of the park is a construction zone. Phase 1 of the Briar Creek Greenway runs a half mile from Bay Street to Monroe Road with an access point at Chantilly Park, and the county describes it as running “along a predetermined alignment through the ecological park.” The status line on the county’s update page is flat: “this is an active construction project site and not yet open for use.” Crews spent July drilling bridge pilings through seven feet of granite. The full 1.6-mile project reaches from Masonic Drive to Monroe Road, aimed eventually at Little Sugar Creek Greenway.

Briar Creek runs through the bottom of the park. Section 11 of the parks ordinance bars bathing “dogs or other animals” in “the streams, lakes, or other water features of any park.”

The county’s park property file puts Chantilly at 19.49 acres. Most directories say seven.