The Oak Park Village Board voted 4-2 earlier this month in favor of a proposal by Oak Park and River Forest High School officials to install a set of shorter field lights on the school’s Lake Street field at 501 Lake Street.
Oak Park and River Forest District 200 officials have been preparing to renovate all ballfields, in part because the school’s track teams will lose access to Concordia University’s track in the spring of 2024. As a result, the district has plans to install a 400 meter track with a competitive field on the school’s back fields, between the tennis courts and stadium.
SD200 also plans to upgrade the Ridgeland Common portion of the school’s campus for softball programs, and install a multi-sport turf field on the Lake Street field, which will be used each spring for varsity baseball, according to project plans.
In 2002, the Village Board gave the school permission to operate four 98-feet-tall light towers at the Lake Street field. With the upcoming renovation of the field, district officials have proposed replacing those four light towers with six light towers ranging in height from 80 feet to 90 feet. And although the proposed new towers are shorter — and more directed in their lighting, thus providing the opportunity for less glare and a reduced impact on neighboring homes to the west — the village’s zoning code only allows 35-feet-tall light towers in that area.
As part of its renovation of the Lake Street field, SD200 officials also asked the village for permission to operate the lights until 10 p.m., which is two hours later than its current permission allows. However, school officials noted that the lights would only be illuminated until 10 p.m. during the months of March through June.
Some neighbors objected to the district’s proposal, even given the reduced height of the light towers.
Stephen Tyma, who for the past 25 years has lived just to the west of the Lake Street field and has been the longtime president of the Euclid Place homeowners association board, expressed his concern to the Village Board at the Sept. 6 meeting that the school district has continually pushed over the years for more permissions regarding the use of the fields.
“This is nothing other than death by a thousand cuts, as each successive proposal negatively affects the neighbors, but taken out of the larger context, each such change is considered to be small,” he told trustees. “The totality of the changes, however, is not small, particularly when one takes into account the changes in the times for which these lights would be permitted if the ordinance is adopted.”
He said the proposed new hours for running the lights at the Lake Street field will bring increased use of the field past the current 8 p.m. deadline “without any demonstrated need,” pointing out that the OPRF does not currently have night baseball games on the current field.
“The current baseball fields at Ridgeland Common are underused at night, so there is no need for an additional lighted baseball field for baseball games at these extended times,” Tyma told trustees.
Trustees, however, were amenable to allowing the new, shorter light towers. Their lone disagreement was whether to allow the continued use of a public address system on the Lake Street field. The district currently uses a portable public address system on the field.
The village’s Plan Commission had voted 5-2 to recommend approval of the lights, but with the condition that a public address system be prohibited on the Lake Street field. SD200 Superintendent Greg Johnson told trustees that the district had hoped to retain the ability to use a public address system at that field.
“The language as it sits now (in the Plan Commission’s recommendation) would be regressive for us,” Johnson told the Village Board at the meeting. “It would mean essentially that for the competitions on the (Lake Street field), we would be restricted from doing something that we do for large competitions. We are using a small portable (public address system) — certainly nothing like the P.A. system that’s across the street for our football stadium, but there is a much smaller one just to announce things for large competitions.”
Village President Lisa Scaman joined three trustees in supporting an ordinance allowing the lights but with no restrictions on the use of a public address system.
“I just don’t feel that the sound of the P.A. system is going to be overly obtrusive to the neighbors,” she said.
Trustee Jim Taglia said he supported the new lights and the extended hours. However, he voted against the measure, citing his objection to allowing the continued use of a public address system.
“You can’t control spillover of the audio. It’s going to go into the neighborhood,” he said. “I do think we should listen to the residents about the actual idea of broadcasting that late at night.”
Goldsborough is a freelancer.
