Editorial
Dim the lights at Magnuson Park

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Sport-field advocates and park neighbors collide during a recent public hearing on expanding athletic fields at Sand Point Magnuson Park.

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Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds have a plan for Sand Point Magnuson Park that goes overboard to expand the number of sports fields at the old Navy airfield.

They would increase the number of fields from eight to 15 — 11 to have all-weather synthetic surfaces and be equipped with bright lights for year-round play. Presently, none of the fields has significant lighting.

The plan represents overwhelming change that would make the park an intrusive neighbor. Many nearby residents are perched on a hill overlooking the park. Understandably, they don't want glaring lights to change their community so dramatically.

Reasonable minds ought to craft a more-moderate alternative: fewer fields and fewer lights.

The city's proposal also does not pencil out financially. The parks department currently has $13 million of $60 million needed to pay for the development. The new facilities will increase operating costs in a city already facing a $26 million shortfall in the general-fund budget next year.

The plan is grossly underfunded and comes at a time when the city does not have enough money to adequately maintain other basic services, including reasonable library hours.

Park officials correctly note the huge demand for expanded and enhanced play areas for youth and adult sports. The need for more fields that can be used in the dark days and evenings of fall and winter grows and grows. That's a good thing if the nation is serious about combating childhood obesity, serious about increasing exercise for people of all ages.

But 11 lit fields, with 78 new light poles, some as tall as 85 feet, would add a lot of light and overwhelm the nearby community.

Sand Point Magnuson Park is not a remarkably picturesque park like Seward or Lincoln parks, with old-growth trees or other, longstanding fauna. Yet at a time of increasing urban density, the park should provide open space and quietude for a variety of populations.

To their credit, park officials would expand and improve natural areas of the park. That makes sense.

In some ways, the heated debate in Northeast Seattle boils down to a question of what kind of facility are they really building? In all likelihood, Sand Point Magnuson would become a regional sports center. People from all over the region would be drawn to the new fields.

But it is unfair to ask one neighborhood to absorb so much of the city's unmet demand for sports fields. Park planners have talked for years about adding play areas. The number needed, the number to be lit and located at the park, changes frequently.

Voters in 2000 approved a parks levy that mentioned development of five athletic fields. The City Council approved a resolution in 1999 that talked about developing seven lighted fields with the possibility of lighting two more.

Park officials have given considerable thought on ways to reduce impacts of new lighting and activity. The department's idea of allowing only some fields be lit until 11 p.m. could be further alleviated by turning off lights at 10 p.m., even 9:30 p.m. Modern technology offers new choices for less-intrusive lighting.

Yet even with thoughtful mitigation, the plan is too overpowering.

The park department doesn't help its case when it presents what amounts to a poker strategy. From the beginning of this debate, park officials appeared to be promoting a high number of lit fields so they would fare well in the inevitable compromise.

Bring on the compromise. Organized sports can gain a lot of playing time, fulfill some demand for improved sports fields, without overpowering and overwhelming the surrounding community. Pare back the plans to a more realistic, affordable number.