Persuaded that it’s time the city of Los Angeles open its first dog beach, a Los Angeles City Council committee on Monday agreed to a 30-day study to determine whether a section of San Pedro’s inner harbor at Cabrillo Beach should be reserved for an off-leash dog play area.

“The city of Los Angeles does not have a dog beach, which is unfortunate,” Councilman Joe Buscaino told his colleagues on the Arts, Parks, Health, Aging and River Committee. “We deserve one.”

Popular dog beaches have operated for years along the coastlines of Malibu, Huntington and Long Beach.

The motion passed by the committee calls on the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, which leases the property from the port, and the Port of Los Angeles to look into the feasibility of the project and present findings to the committee in a month.

Among the issues that need to be weighed are whether the space is sufficient to meet city recommendations for dog park sizes, whether the city’s long-term lease with the port for the beach would allow for a dog recreation area, and whether environmental impacts on the beach and surrounding areas, if they are found to exist, could be offset.

Citing the port’s costly, long-standing — and so far unsuccessful — efforts to clean up the water in the inner harbor, Buscaino said creating a dog beach there makes sense.

The water, he said, is so badly polluted already that it has become a danger to swimmers.

“Year in and year out it gets an F rating by Heal the Bay,” Buscaino said. “I commend the port for making the investment of over $20 million over the course of the last seven years (to try to clean it up), to no avail.”

Years of study by port scientists have confirmed that the basic problem is a lack of water circulation due to the milelong breakwater that cuts the area off from the open water. Even if it were determined that it could be fixed by cutting holes in the breakwater, the costs and logistics could prove prohibitive.

Despite the pollution, the inner harbor — because of its protected geography and mild surf — continues to be a popular spot for families with young children.

“Today you’ll find families down at the inner beach splashing in the water and we still scratch our heads wondering why,” Buscaino said. “We need to send a message to the people that the beach (there) is not safe. So my idea is, give it to the dogs.”

Another plus? A bustling dog beach, the councilman said, also would work into waterfront tourist development plans.

“At a time when we’re trying to activate the L.A. Waterfront, this should be a perfect opportunity,” Buscaino said.

The proposal could face challenges in the port community, where the first dog park was not opened until 2001, long after such facilities had thrived in most other areas and only after years of work by volunteers.

Located on the top of Knoll Hill, it was booted in 2008 and relocated and significantly downsized to less than an acre at the bottom of the hill just off of Harbor Boulevard near the Vincent Thomas Bridge on-ramp where it remains today — but only temporarily until the port needs the land for something else.

Because the site in on port property, state Tidelands Trust does not allow a dog park to remain as a permanent feature because it caters primarily to local residents and not visitors or broader port-tourist interests.

Efforts to locate a dog park at Angels Gate Park died when a park master plan fizzled and was never implemented. Suggestions of other locations have all been nixed.

A dog beach at Cabrillo also is raising concerns about possible impacts on the tidepools, open surf and other environmental resources on the other side of the breakwater. Cabrillo’s south-facing outer harbor repeatedly earns an “A” rating for clean water from Heal the Bay.

The Port of Los Angeles had no comment on the issue Monday, saying only that it would study the possibility with the city’s Recreation and Parks Department and report back to the City Council committee in 30 days.

Buscaino hopes city officials will consider the track records of other Southern California dog beaches in studying the possibility of creating a dog beach in Los Angeles.

“I would encourage the (city’s parks department) to look and mirror what’s going on in Malibu, Long Beach and Huntington Beach,” Buscaino said.