Girls' Little League Field Returns March 8

The town's plan to build a girls' Little League field and infrastructure for a park on Hoyden's Lane, which survived a referendum last summer, is returning to a public hearing next month.

Russell Green, the attorney for the project, filed a traffic report in the town's Zoning Department on Tuesday afternoon, and Assistant Town Planner James Wendt said the proposed field and park infrastructure would go before a hearing of the Town Plan and Zoning Commission on March 8.

But Gary Gulemi, past president of Fairfield Little League Girls Softball, said Tuesday that the field, if approved by the commission, wouldn't be ready for use until the spring of 2012, meaning the girls next spring and fall will have to play on the five to six different fields they now use.

"If they broke ground on March 10, the best possible case would be to play in the spring of 2012," Gulemi said, adding that if the groundbreaking didn't occur until July or August, the league might lose the spring of 2012 as well. "We basically saw it as a 12-month percolation before we could play on the field."

Construction is projected in the zoning application to last from four to six months, but Gulemi said grass needs to be ready as well. The girls' season is from early April through October, according to the zoning application.

The field would be used from 4:30 p.m. to dusk on weekdays, from 9 a.m. to dusk on Saturdays and from 11 a.m. to dusk on Sundays, according to the application. Gulemi said about 330 girls were in the Little League program last year.

The project generated controversy last summer based on its $350,000 cost, which led to an Aug. 12 referendum, and its potential to increase traffic, impair water quality in a nearby reservoir and disturb the surrounding neighborhood.

Kirk Manley of Hoyden's Lane, one of the leading neighborhood opponents, wasn't available Tuesday evening to say if neighbors still had concerns with the project.

The project went before a public hearing of the Town Plan and Zoning Commission in September but stalled after John Fallon, the attorney representing the town, withdrew and Town Attorney Richard Saxl said technical deficiencies with the application had created "appealable issues" and that a new application would be filed.

Michael Galante, a traffic consultant on the project, is still predicting 72 "vehicle trip ends" in the peak hour on weekends, which would represent the total number of cars that leave one game and arrive for a following game.

The new application calls for the golf driving range's existing driveway to remain and for a new driveway for the girls' Little League field to be built to the west of it. The two driveways would be linked inside the property.

The plan also includes a 44-space gravel parking lot, restrooms and safety netting from 40 feet to 60 feet high and about 100 feet long along the west side of the driving range to prevent golf balls from flying onto the field.

Galante says in the new traffic report that none of the roads around the site of the proposed field need to be widened, but he recommends the town, among other things, add speed limit signs on Hoyden's Hill Road and Hoyden's Lane; consider installing a double-yellow line at three curves on Hoyden's Hill Road; and install signs directing motorists to travel on Congress Street and Morehouse Highway before entering the site, instead of Hoyden's Hill Road.