By Kerri Williams
WESTPORT – The Planning & Zoning Commission indicated by straw polls on Monday that it would support adding lights to two athletic fields in town, with some conditions attached.
P&Z members came out mainly in favor of lighting at both PJ Romano field on Riverside Avenue and Wakeman B field on North Avenue as proposed by Erik Barbieri, director of Parks & Recreation for the town. The vote will take place at the commission’s Oct. 5 meeting.
Commissioners discussed both fields separately, with members having more reservations about lighting Wakeman field, which is in a more residential area. During previous public hearings, Wakeman neighbors spoke out against the proposal, saying the lights will bring more noise and light into their evening hours.
In an informal poll, five of seven commissioners said they would support lights at PJ Romano and four of seven said they would support them at Wakeman B. Member Craig Schiavone originally said she was leaning against the lighting at Wakeman but changed her mind during the discussion.
“I’m on the fence,” Schiavone said, at the beginning of the Wakeman discussion. “I’m not sure what the ‘need’ is for this.”
Commissioner Michael Cammeyer reminded members that the town currently does not have any lighted soccer fields. He reiterated some of the testimony during the public hearings from coaches and players. “This is the field that caters to the high school,” he said about Wakeman. Schiavone later indicated that Cammeyer had changed her mind about the Wakeman proposal.
For both fields, commissioners recommended conditions to the lighting approvals, which will be formally written before the October vote. At PJ Romano, which already uses temporary lighting, the lights would need to be turned off at 9 p.m. on both weekdays and weekends. The original proposal had called for the lights to be on until 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings. “I’m fine with 9,” said Commissioner Breanne Injeski. “10 seems a little late.”
In addition, commissioners said users for the fields would be limited to Westport school sports and Parks and Recreation sponsored activities, with no multi-game tournaments allowed.
At Wakeman field, commissioners offered up more conditions, requiring that music be limited to pregame and that three more trees be added to the landscape plan. After concerns raised by Schiavone about lighting the egress area for the field, another stipulation was added that Parks & Recreation would work with the Board of Education to install appropriate lighting for the area.
Cammeyer also intimated that the lights could have an earlier end-time on Saturdays at Wakeman, in the vicinity of 7:30 to 8 p.m. On Monday through Friday, the lights would go off at 9 p.m. to allow time for both school teams and youth teams to use the fields.
Both Patrizia Zucaro and Michael Calise said they would vote against the lights at both locations. Zucaro said she is not convinced that the 70-foot lights requested were necessary, saying that a shorter height of 60 feet might be preferable.
Other commissioners pointed to testimony during the public hearing that the 70-foot lights were necessary for safety because of the high rate of speed of a lacrosse ball. In addition, one expert said the taller lights would provide less glare than shorter ones because of the angle that the light is directed.
For PJ Romano field, the straw poll was 5-2 in favor of the lights, with Injeski, Schiavone, Cammeyer, alternate Nicole Laskin, and Chairman Paul Lebowitz in favor and Zucaro and Calise against. For Wakeman field, the informal vote was 4-3 with Laskin coming out against the Wakeman lights.
“I think I have expressed a lot of my concerns for this field,” Laskin said about her reasoning for not supporting the Wakeman lights. “It’s a great deal more residential. These lights would very much change the community.”
Following the meeting, Wakeman neighbor Shelby Keefer said by email that she was “proud of the advocacy and community organizing that brought these concerns forward.”
“Five of the seven commissioners appeared to genuinely grapple with the substance of the community’s objections,” she said. “It is too early to know how meaningful the conditions attached to any final approval will ultimately be.”
Kerri Williams
Kerri Williams is an award-winning writer and journalist. She has worked as a reporter at the Norwalk Hour, as Living editor at the Darien News-Review, and managing editor for the Norwalk Citizen-News. For Westport Journal, she is a reporter as well as a gardening columnist, writing ‘Cultivating with Kerri.’ Williams moved from Connecticut to upstate New York in 2021.
One thing became profoundly apparent at the PZC “work session” last night: Sone commissioners wanted and needed more information that they will not have before voting on these proposals.
One question after another went unanswered because commissioners closed the portion of the meeting that allowed testimony and data. Instead they relied on the filibustering speculations of one commissioner, who is the chief advocate of the matter. It was extremely painful to watch.
Kudos to those commissioners who would not succumb to the ruse (Laskin, Zuccaro, Calise). Unfortunately they are outnumbered and it appears their questions will remain unanswered under the glare of lights.
It was indeed painful, Toni. It was sad to watch legitimate concerns for the peace and safety of our community browbeaten down and talked into acquiescence by ‘facts’ that are not on the record, but are simply the argument of a commissioner advocate.
That said, perhaps most remarkable to me was Chairman Lebowitz himself realizing in real time that Parks had not provided any scheduling data for the lighted time frame, proposing to have them “grid it out” for justification and being corrected by his staff that the record is closed (prematurely, as he was warned last meeting).
There’s been a clear failure of process and I hope P&Z will not have the last word on this matter.