Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

County halts ball fields for Brooker Creek

Officials are coming up with alternatives to the expansion project.

By THERESA BLACKWELL
Published October 7, 2006

EAST LAKE - Despite years of planning, the four athletic fields and parking lot proposed for a piece of the Brooker Creek Preserve are not a sure thing.

That's because the East Lake Youth Sports Association's expansion into 38 acres of preserve will require a special exception to the land's zoning and an amendment to the county's land use plan.

That announcement, made during Thursday's meeting of the Pinellas County Environmental Science Forum, will mean the expansion must go through six public hearings to be approved.

The news was unexpected, an officer of the East Lake Youth Sports said Friday. The association's board would have to decide whether to proceed with the project.

"I'm really shocked and dismayed that this issue has surfaced," said Bryan Kutchins, general counsel for the group and a long-time board member. "We're just looking for this 30 acres to be added for our kids, and it's under attack."

On Thursday, about 30 residents of the Crescent Oaks subdivision, which has grown accustomed to a view of the pines where the sports fields would expand, turned out in force to oppose the project.

And Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve contends that putting the sports fields in the preserve would be inconsistent with conserving, restoring and protecting it.

Besides, they say, the preserve is for passive recreation like hiking and bird-watching, not soccer or baseball.

Two of the public hearings would be held before the County Commission, and at least one commissioner is interested in looking into other alternatives.

Commissioner Karen Seel toured the field expansion site with science forum members before their meeting Thursday.

"You just try to look at every option possible," she said, "and look at the pros and cons from every direction."

One idea popping up in blogs and elsewhere is to use the vacant land owned by the Pinellas County School Board on the southeast corner of East Lake and Keystone roads until a school is built there.

A county official suggested at the forum meeting that the county might work out a partnership with the school to provide fields that the school could use during the day and the sports association could use at night.

But Seel said there would be neighborhood opposition to sports fields on that corner.

Plus, she said, much of the investment to build fields would likely be lost when the county decided to build a school there. But she's still willing to look at that location.

Jim Miller, the director of the School Board's real property management department, said Friday the site is reserved for a future school, either middle or elementary.

The big stumbling block he sees is that the School Board has many partnerships with governments throughout Pinellas for community use of school property for recreation. But school officials haven't formed such partnerships with private, nonprofits because it would be hard to get the land back.

"If the parents raise a lot of money and spend it on improvements," he said, "they feel an ownership in the property and it's very difficult to get it back."

County actions may have led the sports association to expect smoother sailing.

In 2003, Pinellas County leased the 38 acres on Old Keystone Road to the group for 30 years at $1 a year. A clause of that lease, however, as county officials quickly point out, does require East Lake Youth Sports to obtain all necessary approvals and permits.

In three successive years, the county has earmarked a total of $707,000 in grants to help fund the expansion project, which would include two soccer fields and two baseball fields, a 225-space parking lot and a restroom/concession building on 38 acres of what now is piney woods.

The county had planted 8,000 to 9,000 pines, intending to harvest much of the lumber later and then restore the acres to a natural habitat for the wildlife that lives there.

Some pines would stay to provide buffers around wetlands and in other areas, but most would be cleared as part of the expansion construction - if that still happens.

Kutchins was not sure that would be the case, whether the volunteer board would have the time to see the project through so many hoops.

"I just don't think our board signed up for it or are staffed to deal with it," he said.

An alternative he mentioned might be to turn the land back over to the county so that they could get approvals and build it.

"If they would build it," he said. "We would be happy to manage it for free."

Times staff writer Theresa Blackwell can be reached at tblackwell@sptimes.com or 727 445-4170.

BY the numbers

6 - public hearings required before East Lake Youth Sports Association can obtain a special exception to build a recreation facility on land zoned as agricultural/estate and to amend the land use plan for the site from preservation/resource management to recreation/open space.

38 - acres the association is leasing from the county for $1 a year for the expansion.

90 - percentage of the 1,500 to 1,800 youths the association serves with sports including baseball, soccer, football and cheerleading who are Pinellas County residents.

$1.15-million - grant money the county has earmarked for the association so far, with about 60 percent of that for the ballfield expansion.

4 - Web sites for information and blogging:

www.eastlakesports.com/

www.friendsofbrookercreekpreserve.org/

www.pinellascounty.org/scienceforum/

www.itsyourtimes.com/?q=node/1664.

[Last modified October 7, 2006, 06:45:56]