Sports Complex
July 8, 2001, Newsday, by
Ann Givens
PRACTICE MAKES
PERFECT, but not for the kids in the Manorville Little League.
Because of a
major ballfield shortage in southeast Brookhaven Town, the league's 300 young
athletes didn't have a single practice the entire season.
Even squeezing
in games meant that some teams didn't finish playing until as late as 11 p.m.
on weekends.
"Any
improvement that the kids got all season happened during game time," said
league president John Passaro.
But last month,
the league, together with several other local athletic and community groups,
got the ball rolling toward building more fields.
The groups
persuaded the Brookhaven Town Board to build two new fields. The next step:
persuading the Suffolk County Legislature to buy the land to build them on.
"You'd think we'd spend most of our time helping the kids learn to play
baseball, but really we spend most of our time looking for places for them to
play," Passaro said.
Southeast
Brookhaven is one of the fastest-growing areas on Long Island, and in recent
years, the number of kids who play sports there has far outgrown the number of
fields available.
This season, the
450 baseball players in the Eastport-South Manor Sports Organization shared
only four fields for the season. The Manorville Little League squeezed games
for 300 kids onto one field, often playing two games on the field at once.
When games were
rained out, the leagues either didn't make them up, or had to make them up in
the summer, when many team members were away on vacations.
"We grow 15
percent a year, so we have more kids, less time," said Jim Barbaruolo,
president of the Eastport-South Manor Sports Organization. "We've got to
cut our schedules and then pray it doesn't rain." Brookhaven Town
officials are looking at two fields they'd like the county to buy, both in
south Manorville.
The first is a
72-acre piece of land north of Sunrise Highway between Chapman Boulevard and
Pine Street.
Barbaruolo
speaks dreamily about the property as one where soccer, baseball, lacrosse and
football fields could be built, along with tennis and basketball courts. He'd
also like a path for walking and bike riding, and a playground for younger
children.
"This would
be a facility that would enhance our community and have something for
everyone," Barbaruolo said.
Many sports
league officials say this site would be perfect. It offers access from a
number of different directions, so it wouldn't cause traffic jams at any one
entrance. It is also far away from residences, so noise and lights from
ballgames would be unlikely to bother anyone, league officials said.
Suffolk
Legis. Michael Caracciolo (R-Wading River) says he will consider sponsoring
legislation to buy that site, but only after getting input from the community.
"I
would only sponsor it with the support of the community," he said.
He
said he would not want to buy the second piece of land that the town
suggested, a parcel of about 50 acres near the intersection of Head of the
Neck Road and Eastport Manor Road. Caracciolo said people who live near that
site already have said they don't want ballfields there, mostly because they
feel it will create traffic and noise problems for residents.
"They were
afraid of a lot of traffic, and that cars would be parked for miles,"
Barbaruolo said.
If the Suffolk
County Legislature agrees to try to buy one or both of the parcels, it would
be using part of its Greenways fund, which sets aside money to purchase and
preserve parks, farms and wetlands. Suffolk County voters approved a
$62-million bond in 1998 so the county could preserve open space.
Once the county
purchases the parcels, the Town of Brookhaven has agreed to build and preserve
the ballfields.
"We're
responding to a clear message from residents about what they want," said
Brookhaven Supervisor John Jay LaValle.
Ballfields Coming Soon in Brookhaven
July 4, 2001, Suffolk Life,
By Barbara LaMonica
When the Brookhaven TownBoard held its first community summit in Center Moriches last
month, officials solicited input from the public to gauge public opinion on several
town issues. Additional athletic fields for the growing community, land preservation and "smart growth" topped the community's wish list at the summit, which
drew more than 600 residents and community leaders at Center Moriches High School.
To that end, Brookhaven officials last week approved resolutions, in a joint partnership with Suffolk County,
for the acquisition and maintenance of two separate properties in the township's east end.
According to Brookhaven Supervisor John Jay LaValle, the town would eventually develop at least one of
the two parce1s, for the express purpose of creating ballfields. "This was a reaction to the community's wishes," LaValle said. "We heard
the message from the community at the summit for additional ballfields, and they have given the board very clear
direction on that." He noted that the town council adopted the resolutions as
"a direct result" of the summit. The properties include approximately 57 acres
located north of Sunrise Highway and west of Eastport Road in Manorville· Slated for this parcel is the
eventual development of multi-purpose fields with associated parking and
restrooms. Presently known as the D'Lalio property, the existing farm field would not require any clearing, and
according to the resolution, the development proposal will pose no "significant
impact" on the environment The second piece, known as the Hanley property, is comprised of about 70
acres of farmland in Manorville, located at the south side of Manorville Branch
Road, east of Moriches Manor Road and north of Sunrise Highway Like the DeLalio parcel, the Hanley property will
not require clearing, ..d the proposed ballfields will pose "no significant" environmental impact, according to the resolutions.
The two parcels were identified by the county and will be purchased through funding from the Greenways
Program, LaValle explained The Town of Brookhaven's responsibility would be to map out athletic fields, he said. "We're
committing to building ballfields and parks, with money we do have set aside
that will be appropriated at a future date," he added. The town plans to meet with local
residents, sports teams, athletic leagues and Suffolk County officials to decide on
a balanced mix of athletic fields, LaValle said. "We will also be looking at creating
significant buffers," he added. "Manorville is the fastest-growing community on Long Island. There is a lack of
athletic fields in the Moriches/Manorville area and inadequate facilities for the
children, so it is important that we plan now for their future."
Link
to Story
June 14, 2001, Newsday, by Katie Thomas
Soccer
fields, sensible growth and the survival of the
country life - that's the wish list more than 600
Moriches and Manorville residents presented to
Brookhaven Town Board members at a community
summit held Monday night in Center Moriches.
Town
officials, noting that those communities are some
of the fastest-growing areas in the state,
organized the summit to ask for residents'
guidance on an influx of recent proposals for
commercial development and construction of
athletic fields.
"This
was meant to be a meeting that was productive and
pro-active," said Town Supervisor John Jay LaValle.
As LaValle
and the town board members listened, a parade of
community leaders and residents presented ideas
for their hamlets, which included Moriches,
Center Moriches, East Moriches, Eastport and
Manorville.
Most
expressed a desire to preserve the rural quality
of life that still exists in the communities, but
added that they welcomed limited growth to
support school districts that have become
overburdened with new students.
Commercial
development, said Keith Romaine, president of the
Moriches Bay Civic Association, "does not
have to be unplanned urban sprawl that devours
our landscape." Romaine, a Center Moriches
Republican who is the son of County Clerk Ed
Romaine, proposed imposing a six-month building
moratorium in the area and hiring a professional
planner to examine development in the area.
But although
the proposal was greeted with loud applause in
the Center Moriches High School auditorium, not
everyone supported the idea. Some, including
Charles King of the Moriches Carter Association,
a group of Montauk Highway business owners, said
such a move was unnecessary because the town
conducted a hamlet study five years ago, which
was incorporated into the 1996 Comprehensive
Land-Use Plan.
Building
moratoriums are not effective, King said,
"Because they stop any proposals coming in
the area and tends to bottleneck them. I don't
think it alleviates the pressures that are
there." Romaine said the hamlet study is
already several years old and, given the
explosion of development in the area, it's
necessary to take a second look.
"There's
still this huge amount of development coming
in," he said.
Residents
also asked the town board to force commercial
developers to conform to the rural atmosphere of
the community by providing large setbacks from
the road and modifying their design to better
blend in with the surrounding architecture.
"Our
community is rich with history, architecture,
culture and open space," said Bertram Seides, executive director of the Ketcham Inn
Foundation and the town's East Moriches
representative on the town's Historic Districts
Advisory Council. "Strip malls are out of
vogue across America. There are too many empty
spaces in our existing ones." The pace of
population growth in the communities has also
created a desperate need for athletic fields,
especially in Manorville, which is the
fastest-growing community on Long Island.
Manorville's
Little League is only a year old and yet its one
field is already monopolized nearly every hour
with games, said John Passaro, who runs the
program. The crunch means rained-out games cannot
be made up.
"Next
year I don't want to have to tell a 10-year-old
kid, you can't join, we don't have the space to
play," he told the board. Passaro suggested
creating a sports complex with four fields, a
proposal that drew enthusiastic applause.
Town board
member Edward Hennessey, who lives in East
Moriches, said the residents sent a clear message
to the board. "Maintain a rural character,
place a priority on aesthetics along the main
roads, and provide for adequate recreational
uses," he said. "It's a great
opportunity for us to get an updated pulse of the
community."
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