The “community conversation” hosted by Board of Supervisors Chairman Ken Boyd on Thursday night at the Elks Lodge began as a dialogue among county residents and county and city officials about the proposed lighting project for Darden Towe Park. But it soon became a chorus in favor of saving McIntire Park.
“The two are one issue,” says county resident Clara Belle Wheeler. “You can’t separate them.” [For more of Wheeler’s views on the issue, see page 19.]
Two of McIntire Park’s softball fields will be taken over by parking and the planned 70,000-square-foot YMCA facility. To relocate the displaced softball players, the city and the county have recommended new lighting for Charlottesville High School’s girls softball field and for three softball fields at Darden Towe Park.
 “We just need a place to play,” said Jason Kaiser, a softball player who attended the “community conversation” last week on the plans to light the fields at Darden Towe park. |
Residents of the Key West, Fontana and Cascadia subdivisions vocally opposed the plan to add lights to a park that was meant never to have them. There are 14 proposed light poles, 10 of them 70′ tall and the others 80′ tall. Wheeler said a verbal agreement was given in the 1980s to keep the park dark. A renegotiated agreement on the land, jointly owned by the city and the county, was approved in May 2007. It stated that no lighting was permitted without the approval and consent of the city and the county.
“The fixtures at McIntire Park have been there for a long time, and they are good and centrally located,” said Wheeler. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
For Frank Terrell, Jr., who lives across from Darden Towe, one of the most problematic aspects of the proposed lights is the impact on traffic. “I already see 200 cars an hour driving by my house,” he said, wondering what the numbers would increase to. During peak hours on Saturday mornings, the county estimates that 502 cars every hour will come through the park. On softball nights, 2,400 people would be expected to come to the lighted fields.
Most residents at the meeting cringed at the thought of additional traffic. Softball players in attendance acknowledged the impact the relocation would have on the neighborhood. “We just need a place to play,” said Jason Kaiser.
One last issue is money. The county estimates that the cost to purchase and install lights at Darden Towe will range from $500,000 to $700,000 and will be split 70-30 between county and city.
The Board of Supervisors is slated to hold an October 8 public hearing about the Darden Towe lights.
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