Springfield District residents waiting to know what will happen to Popes Head Estates Park will have to wait until this Thursday. The Planning Commission last Thursday deferred its vote on the park at the intersection of Braddock Road and the Fairfax County Parkway until then, after hearing from about 20 speakers both for and against the proposal.
The Park Authority in December decided to place seven lighted fields — three for baseball and four for soccer — on the site, which it acquired in 2001. The plans also call for playgrounds, picnic areas, rest rooms and parking lots. About a third of the site, close to Piney Branch Creek, would be preserved. The site lies in the Occoquan watershed.
Athletic groups hailed the plan, saying it would provide a few more badly needed fields in the county, but environmentalists and area residents said the fields would disturb both neighbors and wildlife.
Amy Conrick, who lives in the Popes Head View development near the park, called the site a "natural jewel" that shelters frogs, salamanders, foxes, wild turkey and deer in its woodlands, wetlands and vernal pools.
"It supports a whole ecosystem of life," she said. "This would be completely covered up" by playing fields.
"When was the last time you saw in your back yard a wild turkey?"
Conrick suggested that the Park Authority should turn the area into a nature preserve with trails and interpretive signs.
"What we will be throwing away by developing this land is a rare outdoor classroom."
ABOUT 89 PERCENT of the park's 97 acres is wooded, mostly with rare trees, according to a Park Authority report.
Elmer Lumsden, who lives next to the park, said developing the land with ball fields would aggravate an already bad traffic problem in the neighborhood.
"Cars just line up on Braddock Road on weekends," he said. Most of that, he added, is due to large churches on Braddock Road that draw hundreds of worshipers on weekends. Traffic generated by the park would overwhelm the area, he said.
But Denis Clausen, of the Springfield Youth Club, which runs athletic leagues in the Springfield area, said the club is so desperate for new fields it would contribute to their maintenance.
"No new athletic fields have been built in the Springfield area for over 20 years," he said. "At the same time, six additional public schools have been built."
Richard Huber, who runs an adult baseball league with 14 teams and 210 players, said his league was "at the mercy of the number of fields available.
"We could easily have twice as many teams. We don't have the fields available.
"We're all sympathetic to the idea of natural resources and that sort of thing," he said. But, he added, the fields "are needed. People need this kind of activity."
A Park Authority survey found that Fairfax County was short 117 rectangular fields and 18 diamond fields. As a result, the authority has pledged to build 95 rectangular fields and nine diamond fields in the next decade. But the survey also found that a majority in the county want more open space preserved rather than new fields. The survey, conducted last year, found that 56 percent of respondents want more open space, while 23 percent want more playing fields.
Kirk Holley, director of the Park Authority's planning division, said the agency was struggling to reconcile the two priorities.
"We're trying to strike a balance in the development of this site between some preservation and protection and recognition of what's there as well as a serious need for active recreation."