Proposed Arbolitos lights on Poway council agenda

Poway City Council members are expected to decide Tuesday night whether to amend a conditional use permit to allow placement of lights at Arbolitos Sports Fields on Pomerado Road.

A city staff report recommends proceeding with the amendment to add shielded lights on eight, 70-foot poles to provide lighting on the two sports fields.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in what will likely be a packed City Council chambers, 13325 Civic Center Drive. Side doors will be left open to accommodate the crowd, which can listen outside via an audio system.

While the council chambers can hold 200 people, the city decided to keep the location because the session can be recorded, then televised a few days later.

Development Services Director Bob Manis expects the discussion to be “controversial.”

Neighbors who live near the park have collected signatures from those opposing the project, citing potential light spillage into their yards if 70-foot tall lights are installed and other impacts, according to Crestwood Avenue resident Tom Tucker.

Tucker lives at the top of a ridge that overlooks the park, but said that residents on other nearby streets, such as Colony Drive to the west and Glenoak, Frame and Powers roads to the south (and others), will likely experience the impacts as well.

Neighbors also have concerns about results from city studies about noise as well as traffic that, according to Tucker, were not conducted at peak times.

Meanwhile, Ginger Couvrette, who schedules the league soccer games, said that the Arbolitos fields need to be lit to accommodate the 300 players who use that location.

“Lighting Arbolitos is the best choice because two large soccer fields are located there,” she said. “When the time changes in October, Arbolitos is useless except for a few teams that can practice at 3:30 p.m.”

“The vote on Sept. 7 will give us (the city) what direction to take — to move forward, or not,” Manis said.

It will not be a final vote, however, because a full analysis, including how much funding is needed, is yet to be determined, he added.

While the CUP is being reviewed, changes will be considered and neighbors’ concerns, such as traffic, noise and other impacts will be addressed, Manis said.

Tucker said that during the review, the city could possibly consider a lower level of lighting, which would lessen the impact on neighbors.

His concern all along has been that by approving lights for Arbolitos, the city is going against the General Plan, which emphasizes that neighborhood parks should not be lit.

Putting artificial turf on the fields, which was suggested previously, has now been eliminated from the plan, based on a determination by the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee.

That group’s advice is to renovate the existing turf fields to improve drainage.

A lighting study conducted in 1996, which used lights temporarily installed at the fields, was so bright that Arbolitos neighbors on Crestwood said they could read a book in their backyard, Tucker said.

A CUP adopted that year supported no lights at the Arbolitos Sports Fields.

“We want to be good neighbors and are very willing to work to establish guidelines,” Couvrette said. “Basically, we want to practice in November, the way we practice in July.”

Couvrette said that she expects as many as 1,000 players and parents to show up at Tuesday’s meeting.