Glendale Ballparks at Full Count

GLENDALE — So scarce are fields of dreams here that Richard A. Robbins Jr. and his roistering band of Little Leaguers must practice on a tiny patch of burnt grass crowded against a rocky slope.

Because girls team sports are proliferating and public parks are so crowded, Robbins’ team practices are relegated to sandlots.

But Glendale’s solution, a proposed $7.7 million sports complex, is under attack from wealthy neighbors who fear traffic, noise and the glow of stadium lights coming through bedroom windows.

Owners of $350,000 to $500,000 hillside homes have filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the project, in part because the only access is via a single street.

“The flavor of the neighborhood will radically change if the complex goes through as planned,” said Hagop Injeyan, 44, a member of the 200-home Fern Lane Homeowners Assn., which is seeking to halt the proposed complex as it is currently planned.

The 25.6-acre hillside site just east of the Glendale Freeway would require extensive grading and drainage engineering. Homeowners also claim in the suit that the project would disrupt the local ecosystem, harming native animals.

“These people will stop at absolutely nothing to stop this park,” said Robbins, a longtime baseball coach and president of a Glendale financial firm, who helped jump-start the project after struggling to find winter baseball fields two years ago in Glendale.

“The majority of the community has demonstrated its support for the complex, and so the few should not dictate what will benefit the many,” Robbins said. “They should not have the right. In our society, the majority rules. We outnumber them by so many.”

The state Department of Transportation sold the site to the city for $62,000 in 1983. The parcel is far from its natural condition, consisting of excess dirt from freeway construction, at some points 100 feet deep.

“I just believe it’s fill dirt,” said Lee Keyte, regional commissioner of the American Youth Soccer Organization. “I think parkland would be much prettier.”

Attorney Charles Whitesell, a neighbor of the project, disagreed. Citing concerns about affected populations of gnat catchers, among other species, Whitesell said, “Animals are going to be pushed from their environment and back into the hills and displaced.”

Opponents of the project claim the lawsuit is aimed at mitigating the negative effects of the current proposal, offering such suggestions as fewer operating hours and a freeway ramp system to divert neighborhood traffic. The suit claims that the city’s 1-inch-thick environmental impact report is defective, and that the city failed to adequately assess a marked increase in traffic on Fern Lane, the only access to the land.

“This is simply a request that the agencies approving the development tread lightly on the environment . . . as opposed to not treading at all,” said Mark Elliott, attorney for the homeowners association.

Neighbors said they sued because they did not believe the city would honor their concerns.

“The city doesn’t care [about the problems with the complex] because it doesn’t live in the neighborhood,” said Dr. Lazik DerSarkissian, an anesthesiologist who lives near the proposed complex.

Even the surf-like whoosh of steel-belted tires on the Glendale Freeway nearby is nothing, he said, compared to the nightly commotions that would emanate from the other side of the highway up the hill.

“I feel that the money could be better spent on existing facilities . . . and put in the areas where they’re needed, where there’s a dearth of facilities, like in south Glendale,” Whitesell said.

That suggestion is simply not workable, said Nello Iacono, the director of Parks, Recreation and Community Services.

“Where in the southern portion of the city are we going to find 25.6 acres of undeveloped property that is relatively flat, and that the city of Glendale owns?” Iacono said. “And on top of that, [building there] would displace hundreds of families.”

The homeowners insist they are not opposed to youth sports--which have been growing, particularly among girls.

“Just in the last five years, it’s grown tremendously,” said Marge Rader, president of Girls Softball of Little League District 16, when asked about girls’ sports participation in Glendale. “With these new fields, we could expand our teams so that we don’t have to turn away any girls.”

With only 16 baseball and softball diamonds--and not one dedicated soccer field--the city lags far behind National Park and Recreation Assn. recommendations for a municipality of its size--57 baseball and softball diamonds and 29 soccer fields, Iacono said.

Since 1989, the city has seen a 45% increase in youth sports participation, he added, up to 9,979 players on 675 teams in 1996. The last baseball fields in Glendale, on land in Scholl Canyon, were built in 1963.

At that site earlier this week, kids who know nothing of municipal finance said they need more places to play.

“I think there should be more places to play baseball,” said Brent Karn, 12, of Glendale.

“It could be a nice area, and not a dump,” he said of the planned complex, “like Scholl used to be a long time ago, and now it’s a nice field. [The complex site] is just a bunch of grass and leaves and stuff.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Field of Dreams

Glendale plans to build a $7.7 million sports complex on a 25.6-acre hillside site. The complex would have five ballfields and youth players could practice year-round. The complex would be accessed by only one road, and some area residents fear the development will cause excess traffic and noise.

Source: City of Glendale