Encinitas needs sports fields at Hall site

Encinitas needs sports fields at Hall site

North County Times - Escondido,CA,USA
... have in the five communities and one beloved city of Encinitas.
Leucadia resident Nancy DeGhionno is a former Encinitas Parks and
Recreation commissioner.

Human nature motivates homeowners to band together when a change is proposed for their neighborhood. Most remaining residents won't interrupt their lives to spend hours supporting an issue City Council proposed and supposedly supports. This is being illustrated at Encinitas City Hall in regard to the Hall property's 43 acres of parkland at Interstate 5 and Santa Fe Drive.

Encinitas is built-out, having only limited infill space available. City Hall has been working to provide for recreational needs based on goals established at incorporation in 1986. The shortage of sports fields existed then. Today, city-owned soccer fields total only one dedicated field plus one shared-use field.

About half of this property is adjacent to residents, a third abuts Interstate 5, and the remainder abuts a shopping center. This is clearly not "in the middle of a residential neighborhood."

Encinitas has met other recreational needs with other park sites such as Indian Head Canyon, the San Diego Gas & Electric Co. easement off-leash dog area, the Senior/Community Center, Oak Crest Park, Cottonwood Creek Park, Little Oaks Equine Park, Moonlight Beach, etc. These phenomenal assets provide an opportunity to all residents, not just those within a couple of miles. Each of these is unique, providing their available combination of facilities and/or natural surroundings for the benefit of all residents, ideally providing the optimal service available by that particular site's opportunities and constraints. In a perfect world, a variety of recreational needs could be met at numerous locations, but this has proven to be geographically, environmentally and fiscally impossible. We are forced to live within the constraints and realities of today and resource limitations of tomorrow.

Aside from the development of this property, small neighborhood parks will likely be the only parks the city builds in the future. By definition, they do not provide sports fields. Therefore, the future may not provide any other locations to install these fields, which Encinitas desperately needs to own in order to retain control over their use, maintenance and availability.

City Council plans to leave sections of this park vacant for the future development of the teen center, pool, skate park and more, installing facilities in a phased approach. Therefore, current infrastructure limitations do not necessitate a change to the conceptual plan that would reduce the number of sports fields. Phase 1 construction can be adjusted to impact current infrastructure to acceptable levels of service, leaving additional installations to a future date.

I urge support and planning of the proposed sports fields, to install them as funding and traffic improvements permit. The City Council conceptual plan already includes many varied amenities. Let's plan our centerpiece park to meet as many unmet recreational needs as possible. In order to compensate for the existing deficit of facilities we must look at the big picture and plan for the future. We are all funding it, and realistically, this may be the last opportunity we have in the five communities and one beloved city of Encinitas.

Leucadia resident Nancy DeGhionno is a former Encinitas Parks and Recreation commissioner.