When Residents Reject Youth-Sports Fields

Park improvements can spur controversy without buy-in from the public

By Jefferey Spivey

Youth-sports fields generally offer positive benefits for communities. Most notably, they encourage children’s participation in team sports, where they can establish healthy habits, hone their skills, and fortify social bonds.

Photo: Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance

And the advantages extend beyond sports teams. 

Making An Investment

In Fairhope, Ala., where a new sports complex is set to debut in the next two to three years, youth fields can spur economic growth via tourism.

“[It] brings dollars to your community, whether it’s through sales tax or lodging tax,” Mayor Sherry Sullivan says.

To date, Fairhope has struggled to meet the growing demand for youth sports.

“We do not have the field space currently for any kind of sports tourism, other than for soccer,” Sullivan says. She estimates that registrations for baseball and softball teams are up 40 percent year-to-date. But those players will have to travel to nearby communities to compete. She sees the complex—near County Roads 13 and 32—as a pathway to offering more recreational opportunities at home and anticipates a positive response from residents.

“Especially with the pandemic, they love to see you making an investment back in your parks,” she says. “The pushback is that we’re not moving fast enough.”

On To Plan B

But positive fanfare isn’t the case in all communities. For some residents, the potential downsides of new youth-sports fields have eclipsed the positives.

In Fort Lee, N.J., a new multi-purpose athletic field was proposed in Linwood Park to provide much-needed space for youth sports. But pushback was swift, with residents of North Central Road—leading directly to the park’s entrance—objecting to multiple parts of the plan, including the removal of several trees.

Among the plan’s other elements were a proposed soccer field, a softball field, and 100 parking spaces.  Residents expressed concerns about the amount of parking, the possibility of increased car traffic through their neighborhood, the eyesore of visible bathroom facilities, and reduced safety due to the influx of park visitors. Mayor Mark Sokolich rescinded the plan in response.

“I take a lot of pride in the large swath of my community supporting what it is I want to do,” he says. 

He soon found himself juggling competing priorities.

“This neighborhood is very, very sensitized to anything happening in that area, and I respect that,” Sokolich says. “But it’s public land, and I’ve got to try to use it so that it’s going to accommodate everybody within reason.”

Sokolich used residents’ feedback to craft a second proposal. “Plan B” includes only the softball field and half the number of parking spaces, which will be constructed using permeable pavers. Additionally, the plan restricts pedestrian access, adds balusters to stop thru traffic, and suggests planting 15-foot Arborvitae to surround the public restrooms. Sokolich estimates these changes will result in “70-percent less trees” being cut down.

To further solidify public support, he also plans to refurbish the park’s popular walking trails with biodegradable materials and low-lying lights, improving the trails’ overall quality and making them accessible after dark. 

And Sokolich remains open to further negotiations. He understands the residents’ desire to leave the park unchanged. Still, he worries that opponents will never be pleased. 

“If this thing continues to get pared down, I’ve got to make a judgment call as to whether this is all worth it,” he says.

Sokolich also has to consider input from the Palisades Interstate Park (PIP) Commission, which owns Linwood Park. The borough has an agreement with the PIP Commission to maintain the land.

“We’ll play a role of approver and reviewer,” says Joshua Laird, Executive Director of the PIP Commission. 

Photo: © Brian Canniff / UltiPhotos.com

To date, Laird says Fort Lee has done an “excellent job” managing Linwood Park, adding that the commission wouldn’t have the resources to improve the park without the borough’s involvement. When “Plan B” is presented, the commission’s role is less a check on Sokolich’s ambitions and more a mediation between Fort Lee’s plans and the community’s needs.

“Does the new plan find that balance between passive space and active space?” Laird plans to ask. 

Community engagement will be a top issue, too. Sokolich regrets not being directly involved with the rollout of the first proposal and plans to personally oversee the release of the revised plans, through a mix of town-hall meetings and social-media campaigns. Laird indicated the commission would review the communication strategy as well.

Communication Breakdown     

The hope is that a more proactive outreach will result in public buy-in. Community members were hoping for this type of engagement in West Philadelphia, where a new football and track stadium is set to be built atop Edgely Ultimate Fields.

The fields have been managed exclusively by the Philadelphia Area Disc Alliance (PADA) and Prior Cricket Club for more than three decades.

“When I got there, it was basically just like any other patch of dirt with a little bit of grass,” says Marc Davies, former PADA Board President and member of Preserve Edgely, an advocacy group working to preserve its seven fields.

Davies says the PADA board eventually turned the fields into one of the area’s nicest spaces and grew local participation in youth Ultimate by buying insurance for high-school students whose schools couldn’t obtain it and creating a city-wide league. It later expanded to include middle-school students and started sending Philadelphia-based teams to national tournaments. He believes that Philadelphia’s Ultimate league is among the country’s largest and most well-known because of its ability to host several games and tournaments in one spot—Edgely. He estimated that more than 200 people could be using the fields at any given time.

“We have this entire community that’s built on being together,” he says.

Yet the city’s plans, which PADA learned about when filing to renew its permits, would leave only two fields for Ultimate Frisbee and cricket. This would force PADA to spread out tournaments across Philadelphia, eroding the sense of community that has come to define it.

In addition, Davies says that PADA would have to cut back its programs, likely leading to less revenue and reduced headcount within the organization.

“I genuinely don’t think there is another spot in the city that can host 12 to 14 teams, all in the same venue,” says Elena López, Executive Director of PADA. “A turf field makes sense, but not here.”

Both López and Davies were equally frustrated with the lack of communication from the city. (Philadelphia Parks & Recreation did not answer a request for comment by press time.)

Through Preserve Edgely, Davies says he and other advocates support additional resources for youth sports, but not at the cost of what they’ve already built. He adds that the group has resources to identify better locations and raise funding, but city officials haven’t been receptive.

Community engagement has been lacking, as well as clarity on the next steps.

“We’re not sure where things are, but our goal is to keep generating support in a lot of different ways, for them building a project that we want to be built in a place that I think would be better for the community,” he says.

In the meantime, PADA and Prior will share some of their space with a youth-football program, which would eventually use the new stadium if things go as planned.

For Sullivan, who’s at least two years away from seeing construction in Fairhope, the issues in West Philadelphia and Fort Lee offer valuable lessons about communication and compromise. But they’re already on her radar.

She’s currently overseeing widespread park improvements to address her community’s current needs, and outreach is crucial.

“I think there’ll be a lot of public engagement,” Sullivan says. “[We’ll] listen to the people who live here and see what they want.”

Jefferey Spivey is a freelance writer living in Bentonville, Ark. Reach him at jefferey@uptownbourgeois.com.