Lights will dim earlier at selected city parks

Bowing to pressure from some neighborhood groups, the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation plans to turn off lights earlier at some athletic fields around the city.

But the decision by Parks Superintendent Ken Bounds likely will do little to quiet the fierce battle between those who play on the city's lighted fields and those who live next to them.

It is the first time in more than 50 years that the Parks Department will change its practice of lighting fields until 11 p.m.

Starting next year, four of the 19 playfields with lights will go dark an hour earlier: Ballard, Bitter Lake and Loyal Heights in North Seattle and Miller on Capitol Hill.

Park highlights Changes to the Parks Department lighting and playfield- development plans include: • Turning field lights off no later than 10 p.m. at Ballard, Bitter Lake, Loyal Heights and Miller playfields. Judkins and Soundview playfields will be added to the list after lights are installed there. • The Parks Department will replace lighting at Miller Playfield within two years. Problems at the fields have troubled neighbors for years. • Lights will not be installed at the Queen Anne Bowl. • The city will include a football field in addition to track-and-field facilities at West Seattle Stadium.

The new policy will eliminate about 300 late-night soccer and softball games, but the department hopes to make up the loss when lighting goes up later this year at Genesee Park and Playfield in Southeast Seattle and other fields.

"It was a real effort to balance and customize the scheduling," Bounds said.

But it didn't go nearly far enough for Renee Barton, a leading lighting critic. The founder of Residents for Fair Lighting called the decision disappointing.

"Most residents want the lights off at 9 o'clock," she said. "This doesn't do anything."

Beyond the glare from lights, homeowners have complained about the noise, traffic, parking and trash from late-night games.

The Parks Department has been under tremendous pressure from organized sports leagues, which already must compete for increasingly scarce time on Seattle fields.

The new policy likely won't sit well with the city's largest adult league, Co-Rec Soccer.

Its 7,000 members must already play most of their games outside the city. And the group has fought previous proposals that would have resulted in the loss of any more games.

The new lighting policy comes as Bounds and Mayor Greg Nickels prepare to release the final proposal to upgrade and light dozens of athletic fields around the city.

The city wants to allow more use of Seattle School District and Parks Department athletic fields by converting some of them to artificial turf that could be used year-round and by installing more lights that would allow play after dark.

The plan includes more than 50 projects that would add thousands of additional hours and double the number of parks with lighted fields. Money will come mostly from park and school levies, and officials hope to complete at least one project a year.

Although the Seattle City Council has no say on when the lights go out at athletic fields — that decision is made by the parks superintendent — the council will vote on the development plan.

Council President Peter Steinbrueck, who was highly critical of earlier versions of the plan, said the final proposal strikes a better balance between the concerns of neighborhoods and the needs of athletes.

"They've looked at all the issues more sensitively than they have in the past, and I think this goes a long way in responding to the neighborhood concerns," he said.

The Parks Department removed some of the more controversial elements of the plan, including a proposal to install lights at the Queen Anne Bowl playfield.

Nearby homeowners flooded the Parks Department with letters and e-mail opposing the new lighting. And until last month, Bounds said the department planned to leave the project on the list.

Yesterday, he said the department decided against lighting the field, not so much due to the opponents' concerns but because it is smaller than a regulation-size soccer field.

J. Martin McOmber: 206-464-2022 or mmcomber@seattletimes.com.